A civil society organisation has called for a ban on street-trading and motorbike taxis, otherwise called Okadas, in the central business district of Freetown.
In a press release, Health Alert Sierra Leone has declared “a 100-day campaign to urge government to abolish street-trading and immediately relocate all traders and Okada riders from the principal streets of Freetown”.
Signed by its Executive Director, Victor Lansana Koroma, the organisation says such a ban will ensure the free flow of vehicular and pedestrian movements in the city which it believes are being hampered by Okada riders and street traders who block the central business district causing “serious impediment to the free flow of traffic, movement of people [by] preventing [them] to go about their normal business”.
Health Alert says the selling of wares on the streets and Okada-riding cause a health hazard and other harm to people in the Freetown municipality through frequent road accidents by Okada riders, and deaths due sometimes to delay in ambulance or hired taxis taking accident victims to hospital.
It also says the number of pickpockets has increased due to the congestion caused by street-trading and Okara riding in the city centre.
The organisation urges government to de-politicise its approach to the issue and ease off the central business district of the capital.
A good number of the Okada riders numbering tens of thousands, fought during the country's civil war. Some argue that the trade enables them fend for themselves in a country where jobs are few and far between.
Police have made halfhearted and indecisive efforts to keep the riders off the streets but they have so far failed.
A senior police officer recently told a local radio station that if they got the all-clear from government they would clear them off the streets. Something that has been interpreted to mean that government is propping them up for political gains.
(c) Politico Online 12/12/12
