By Mohamed Foday Conteh
All those using the Blackhall Road axis to enter Kissy will notice the infamous Kissy Brook Bridge. The tag “infamous” is deliberate because it is the only bridge on Blackhall Road before one arrives at PWD Junction. But that is not the bridge of concern for now. Although this one too has its own issues, let’s leave it for another day.
Those that ply the Kissy Brook axis must have noticed that the bridge that lies opposite the Blackhall Road Bridge by the market. It is an arch bridge built in the colonial era; initially built for a railway but when the Siaka Stevens regime removed the railroad, it was converted to a vehicular bridge.
It seems the decision to transform that bridge into a vehicular bridge was prudent at the time. I cannot tell whether they foresaw the massive population boom of that community at the time. The Kissy Brook community via Akram axis now hosts a population in the thousands that highly depend on that bridge. Apart from that, the bridge is one of two main roads to a market on which close to half of the Kissy population depends.
A few meters away from the bridge is a drive on the left that leads to the community I mentioned earlier. The road is well paved with trellises on both sides. It looked like a typical East End Freetown community setting. Most of the houses are not fenced and they are mostly built as flats. A few paces to the left you will see the minaret of Ahmadiyya Mosque and just after the mosque there is a slope that further leads to another huge settlement that almost depicts a shanty town.
Personally, at this point, it is rationale enough for me to mention that I spent a good number of my childhood in that part of Kissy. I could vividly remember when I and my friends staggered past the many inquisitive eyes that were always on alert to beckon the parents of our presence at the local stream called “Poka” that ran under the bridge. I used “ran” because all that is left of that stream is now heaps of garbage –mostly plastic waste. The stream is now only a stream in the middle of the wet season.
In another setting, every morning, Mariama Conteh, a petty trader that specializes in pepper hawking, dashes to Kissy Brook Market to set up her table. It is through that business that she has been taking care of her three children and settled her rent for the past 5 years. Her table is on the market bridge. Mariama who has been buying tickets from the Freetown City Council (FCC) from the past 5 years, is scared of the risk that the bridge posed especially this wet season. “I remembered during the mudslide when the water escaped through the top of the bridge,” she lamented.
At the back of one of the houses, I met a young man –presumably in his 20s. Mohamed Kamara as he introduced himself is the Youth leader of that community. When I introduced myself and my job to him, the young man was more than willing to talk to me. “I am willing to speak to you because this bridge is very important to us,” he said with a grin. He further went on to tell me that they have been conducting resource mobilization for the community and through the many contributions, they were able to pave almost their entire community. “The paved road you saw outside was from the penny that members of this community have been putting together –no politician came to our aid,” the youth leader protested.
He also said that although they have been collecting money for the renovation of their streets, it has however not been enough to extend to that of the bridge. He went on to state that although they had sought the help of the Sierra Leone Roads Authority (SLRA), it has not yielded any progress. The SLRA is aware that the bridge is of serious concern. “Engineers from the SLRA were here and in fact, told us that the bridge is unsafe,” Kamara claimed. With regret and disappointment, the young man told me that his community is always left out with regard to development.
Just a few hundred meters away from the bridge is the headquarters of SLRA. That office had been there since the previous century and that could be seen visible when one enters their premises. The corrugated roofs of a couple of the buildings are sure to catch your attention. There is also a modern building at the extreme end of the compound. It is at this building that I met the Communications Specialist, Keifa Jaward –a young man dressed in a blue shirt and jeans. I introduced myself to him and he warmly ushered us (I was with a friend and colleague journalist) into his office.
“It is among the bridges being assessed,” Jaward replied to me when I put the first question to him. He agreed that the bridge in question is among the many colonial bridges that are found all over the country. Jaward agreed with the community people that carriage restriction is a prudent step. However, there is a contrasting view between the SLRA and the community with the notion that the bridge is unfit for purpose. Jaward affirmed his point when he said that their comprehensive analysis posits that that bridge is fit for the next 5 years.
One of the key reasons stalling the renovation of the bridge is funds as the SLRA have already put their priorities in other development or focal projects elsewhere. Also, the operations of the Road Maintenance Fund and the SLRA have evolved over the years. For these reasons, the SLRA deems fit to partner with NGOs and other development partners.
A bridge that links a community with over 2,000 people, churches, mosques, schools, cinema, and sole entrepreneurship businesses, has been told to hang on for another 5 years perhaps. With this, I wander in my thought which posited troubling questions to me: why must we wait for problems to occur before we act? Shouldn’t we be more proactive than reactive? For how long are we going to bask in mediocrity all in the name of resilience? These questions I was unable to answer because it all seemed like circles from the Savage Street Bridge to Tengbeh Town Bridge and to another somewhere we might not even know until the unthinkable…God forbid.
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