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After six years of ernest roadbuilding Sierra Leone’s roads are still a
mess
by
Paul
Conton
Sierra Leone King Jimmy bridge
collapses
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Six years into the “greatest road construction program in the
nation’s history”, one could be forgiven for wondering whether the roads are
not falling apart faster than they are being built. At this rate, we all reading this will be
dead long before Sierra
Leone will be able to legitimately boast
of good roads. In the capital, a relative handful of roads have been
resurfaced, in a few cases widened at great cost, but the vast majority of
roads remain in a sorrier shape than ever before. Reports from the provinces
indicate that, as usual, the situation there is far worse. During this, the
height of the rainy season, many ‘roads’ are impassable.
In
Freetown the
flagship road project, Wilkinson
Road, continues to have its problems. Despite
near continuous efforts to clear its drains there are frequent blockages,
causing large streams and ponds of water at different places along its 5 km
length. As elsewhere all over the capital, a tremendous quantity of debris,
garbage and topsoil is being washed down
Adelaide Street, central Freetown
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from the surrounding mountains, silting up not only the gutters but
also Freetown’s
beautiful beaches and bays. The roads and gutters are the pathways for this
material to the sea. One of the original criticisms of the Wilkinson Rd project (read natinpasadvantage) was the complete absence of any kind
of environmental study to go along with it. The drains were covered, in the
modern fashion, which is good, but no apparent thought or effort went into reducing
the solid waste that is clogging them. When this happens on Wilkinson Rd
during a downpour, the huge concrete slabs are ripped open by the pressure of
water, and the runoff pours onto the road. As unplanned and uncontrolled home
construction continues apace, denuding the surrounding hills and increasing
the aggregation of runoff, the government appears to all intents and purposes
blissfully unaware of the tremendous environmental damage being done to the
ancient capital. Important roads and
intersections where water runs down from the hills are riddled with
potholes (read New
England Road is a Death Trap). I had the misfortune to be caught at
Kennedy Street, in the East of Freetown, during a relatively small downpour
and was amazed to find the entire road, recently refurbished, turned into a
foot deep river of fast-moving water, hazardous to the strongest of
pedestrians, within only a few minutes. Projects like these, hastily planned,
at the behest of politicians and without the benefit of professional advice
(SLRA has become a powerless tool in the hands of the politicians) are
tantamount to a huge waste of taxpayers’ money. Neighbouring Kissy Road,
across which all the runoff from Mount
Aureol
must flow, suffers similar problems. (read Kissy Rd. floods)
If experience is any guide, given the political priorities, one can
be certain that however bad Freetown may be, ‘upline’
is worse and reports from there speak of fatal road accidents caused by bad
roads and tortuous journeys with
vehicles stuck in mud for hours on end (read road
nightmare) and important population centers cut off from vehicular access. All of this
comes at a time when strategic roads in the capital, such as the Congo Cross Bridge
through Brookfields and the new Waterloo Rd are around the 40-year mark
and are beginning to show their age.
1Kingharman
Road during downpour
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The APC roadbuilding strategy is poorly
thought out and probably fatally flawed. From a position in the eighties
where road maintenance was entirely done by in-house units of the Ministry of
Works and the Freetown City Council, these units were completely dismantled.
Road repair work is now sporadically parceled out on a street by street basis
(in a municipality of, who knows, 1000 streets?) to
small private contractors, some of whose competence is questionable. The vast
majority of roads in the capital and elsewhere are simply ignored. Regular
inspection and spot maintenance, which is vital for road maintenance, has
been abandoned. These activities are not associated with large individual
contracts and are not favoured by our politicians.
The APC’s preferred method for disbursing the
available road funds is to hand out large contracts for major roads
(alternatively, large contracts for a number of selected minor roads). These
contracts are often shrouded in secrecy, and in at least some cases allegedly
inflated. The selection of specific roads is, as far as one can tell, not
done by professionals but by politicians. There is no serious study accompanying
the process. No traffic planning or monitoring by road traffic specialists.
In all my years in Freetown
I have yet to see an automatic traffic monitoring device, of the type you commonly
see in countries where traffic and roads are seriously planned. Economic
analysis? Environmental study? Public engagement? Inspection of roads and
bridges? Forget it. If continued the APC strategy means that we may end up
with a few solid roads and very many dirt tracks.
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