The director for development at the Sierra Leone Roads Authority (SLRA), Lansana Conteh, has described the main road to the district border town of Kambia leading to Guinea as an embarrassment to the government and country.
Mr Conteh was responding to series of complaints raised by residents of Kambia through their APC MP, Ibrahim Sorie, who met the SLRA director at Kambia town to discuss the issue. Up for intense discussion was the highway between Rogberry and Pamalap whose construction was awarded to an Italian company (CEC) for a period of two years and payments made to the company but the firm abandoned the project site with only 25% of the project completed. In that vein the SLRA terminated the contract and awarded it to another company which undertook the job better. He intimated that both the Sierra Leone and Guinean governments had agreed to ensure that the work recommence in October this year for a speedy completion of the project, adding that 22 million Euros would be provided by the Sierra Leone government. Meanwhile, the SLRA director confirmed that they would be rehabilitating and constructing roads within the township of Kambia and its environs within the next two weeks, as plans were underway to service the entire road network countrywide.
Ibrahim Sorie lamented that, “October is quite a long time as the rainy season will make it more difficult for motorists and pedestrians to access the road which will continue to dilapidate depriving the entire district of developmental programmes and also a loss to the nation on its basic food stuff to reach the market on time”. The APC MP was worried that traders would have no alternative but to take their produce to neighbouring Guinea for sale which could earn them more profit than pay huge sums to transport their goods to Freetown which would be very costly. The legislator urged the SLRA through the director of development to expedite the contract bidding process for companies to start the work immediately.