By: Rancy S. Teewia
The Government of Liberia through the National Transit Authority (NTA) and the Government of Sierra Lone have signed a bilateral agreement to have Cross borders transport activities in order to ease the transport burden between the two countries.
The Executive Director-General of the National Transit Authority (NTA), Mr. Harbie McCauley, who made this disclosure, said the agreement is a mandate from President George Manneh Weah as part of the government’s pro-poor agenda for prosperity and development.
Mr. McCauley spoke yesterday when he addressed regular Thursday press conference of the Ministry of Information Cultural Affairs and Tourism in Monrovia.
McCauley explained that the transportation pact between the two countries will relief business people the huge transportation fares cost them to travel to Sierra Lone to buy goods.
Prior to the signing of the agreement, business people from both countries have been incurring huge fares on commercial vehicles and flights to conduct their cross-border trade between the two countries. But the NTA executive managing director said the signing of the agreement will help them to ease their transportation problem with a very affordable cost of 20 United State Dollars and 40 United State Dollars for round trip.
“In the next two weeks, for the first time in the history of Liberia, the NTA will commence transportation to Sierra Lone,” Mr. McCauley said. He added that the process will be easy because buses of the Sierra Leonean counterpart to the NTA will also be plying the route to Liberia and back as well.
The NTA boss indicated that the cross-border transportation pact will be extended to other Mano River Union countries so that Liberia will connect the other countries in the region.
“The significant part of this agreement is that, this activity will be in the Mano River Union, other countries are doing it Ghana to Togo, Ghana to Ivory Coast and Ivory Coast to Nigeria; and we at the NTA do not want to be left behind in this 21th century,” he said
Mr. McCauley also assured the general public that the issue of internet will be resolved next week, and costumers will begin browsing on the buses hopefully next week.
“We want to inform the general public that the reason why Wi-Fi is yet to be on the buses is because the cards that we are supposed to use on the buses are delayed from china due limitation of travel to and from that country as a result of the outbreak of the Coronavirus in that country.
At the same time, the NTA’s executive managing director said he has realized that there are lots of children living in the NTA Community whose parents cannot afford to have them in School, a reason for which he promised that the National Transit Authority will offer 125 scholarships to all of the communities.
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