SAWN Trending: The Toll-road, what does it offer? 

Amadu Wurie Jalloh & Earnest Yusif Tarawalie

In the words of SARAH SANDS (Evening Standard, Tuesday 8 March, 2016, p.15), “It is axiomatic that people grumble about big public projects until they are successful and then all oppositions is forgotten.” This I want to believe is the case with many development strides of governments and its partners in Sierra Leone overtime including the recently embarked on four-lane toll-road project. I admit things have not been easy in Sierra Leone, especially since the last Ebola Outbreak and the fall of iron ore and raw commodities in the global market, which twin shocks devastated our economy, but yet we’ve seen progress and defied expatriates forecasts on the magnitude effect it could cost us.

The pivotal role good roads networking plays in promoting sustainable economic growth and livelihood cannot be overemphasized. The country arguably has some of the poorest road infrastructure in Sub-Sahara Africa, with vicious spoils of the devastating 12year war still eminent. This project I believe will solve lots of issues, some of which including: Road rage which is causing lots of nuisance and menace, smooth inflow and outflow of commodities and people in and out of Freetown to the provinces and neighbouring countries, congestion and road accidents, tightening security monitoring activities for traffic and road crimes with the cameras, tourism, fuel utilization cut as a result of reducing time covered at a usually short but congestive distance, enhancement of effective monitoring activities and service delivery for public services, and finally this would help attract more investors in the country because of the infrastructural  improvement which could be business friendly.

I also believe this road project will help actualize the decentralization policy and reduce population density in the capital in cases where business choose to dodge the payment of the levied sum and decide to instead divert their market base to other provincial headquarter towns.

Shebora Samaba Kamara

The toll road project is in fact an ironic and a miscalculated government policy. The country is in a state of “austerity measures” dubbed as economic/revenue rationalization. It is therefore ironic that few months ago the government tell us to cut-down spending and allow equilibrating a crippling economy, and now the same government is rationalizing their blunder by asking us to pay huge sums for maximum 25years to access the capital city, and, or its outskirt. Meanwhile nationals, unlike other countries with similar projects, have not been given an optional road in the event they cannot afford the levied amounts for a swifter transportation.

The toll road will worsen inflation which to some extent is the cause for declaration of a state of austerity. Sierra Leone is an import based economy; we greatly rely on essential commodity imports from our neighbouring Guinea to replenish our emasculate and centralized market, and Masiaka Highway is the only sure gateway to these stock exchanges. Businesses mainly entrust their goods to heavy-duty vehicles for transportation to ensure intactness and lesser expense, and now their charges are almost doubled. This will inflate prices; deflate the Leone’s value as against the $US Dollar and Guinean Franc; increase cost of living and worsen livelihood; and most importantly the immediate shock will render lots of businesses, especially indigenous industries incompetent and so loosing market space. In essence, the Farmers who produce crops from the provinces to supply in freetown will surely be faced with the constraints of transporting such because most times heavy duty trucks are contracted to transport these foods stuffs to freetown, the exorbitant prize tags for accessing the toll road will only render us an economy that does not support local farmers and business men as food items will have to perish and the people of freetown will have to suffer the most.

Ibrahim Mansaray & Saidu Mahmoud Bah

The toll road is in direct opposition to Pillar 1 of the Agenda for Prosperity- Road to Middle Income Status which deliberates on diversified economic growth with special reference to “removing constraints to women’s participation in the economy” and strategies to enhancing maximum agricultural production (GoSL 2013-2018). The initiation of this project will worsen food insecurity in the country and lead to massive unemployment among women and youths. National Food Poverty, according to the Agenda for Prosperity (GoSL 2013-2018) as at 2011 is at 47.7% (51.8% in Rural, and 40.8% in rural), which is among the highest in West Africa. Agriculture contributes 40 to 50% of the GDP of the country. “Women account for approximately 55% of agricultural production” and they are the mostly vulnerable (GoSL, 2013-2018). The heavy charges on transportation for agricultural harvest will discourage many farmers and divert the youths and abled bodies to other income generating activities, as we have already in lots of villages and towns. Freetown is by far the biggest market base for agro-produce in the country reasons being our agricultural produce have not been doing well both in catering for the population and in meeting standards at the internal level.

This project will trigger the insurgence of in-betweeners in the agricultural economy and further worsen cost of production and food poverty and malnutrition. Lots of farmers cannot afford hiring a truck to Freetown after a bountiful produce in time to come, and this will trigger a revert to subsistent agricultural practice, and disenfranchise women in the economic and social sense. Livelihood and welfare will be affected greatly, and import will further outweigh export level. And worse still people will risk taking their goods to Freetown through canoes and other unsafe means of transportation by water that could lead to loss of properties and endangerment to lives. Either way the project will create a room for black marketers (profiteers) and artificial price hiking for most indigenous produce; and indigenous industries will suffer the most. I believe the best way to have opened up partnership in infrastructural development with the Chinese was to have given them the chance to recreate the railway system of transportation which is an effective means of opening small towns and enhancing transportation of goods and services, and tourism. A railway system would have make accessibility to agro-produces in many interior parts in the country to Freetown and hence prompted investment in agriculture. This would have helped made redundant lots of other unsafe transportation means and redirect youths attention to agriculture and farming to enhance both food security and diversified economic development.