Shameful!! At SLRSA…No Driver’s License for One Year

The delay in producing driver’s license over a year by the Sierra Leone Road Safety Authority (SLRSA), continues to cause serious embarrassment for drivers.

While the Road Safety Corps division of the authority is on the spree to arrest drivers without a valid license, the very authority has failed to produce a license without justification.

For months now, those paying for renewal or new licenses are only given a slip which sometimes are even questioned by the Sierra Leone Police.

Expressing his frustration, a 43-year-old driver Amadu Barrie, said that he paid in March this year for the renewal of his license.

Sadly, he was only given a slip which was not recognized by the Guinean police.

“When I showed the slip to the Guinean police, they tore it and almost got me arrested if not the intervention of one of them. SLRSA cannot continue to collect money for services they are not capable of rendering. They should stop arresting drivers with expired licenses until they start to produce new ones,” he said.

Interval findings by this medium revealed that the issued slip from SLRSA is only meant for internal purpose and not to drive outside Sierra Leone.

That in itself limits drivers en route to neighbouring countries and exposes them to extortion.

This is totally a national disgrace in the eyes of other countries.

Must it take the authority months or years to produce a service that people are willing to pay for?

If the authority lacks the capacity to produce license which is obviously obvious, why not privatize the service just like how they had done with Autospec?

Amidst poor service delivery, SLRSA recently imposed a 150% fee increase on all services including driver’s license, vehicle renewal.

James Bio, the current Executive Director has served enough in that authority, and his appointment to head the institution was meant to bring sanity and service delivery contrary to what is happening now.