Autospect Milking Sierra Leoneans Dry

Autospect Milking Sierra Leoneans Dry

After signing of the contract between the government of Sierra Leone and Autospect, three key officials of the SLRSA decided to visit Spain and Lebanon, where the company had boasted that it had its parent body that will be supporting its operations in Sierra Leone. The SLRSA team discovered that there were no offices of Autospect in both Barcelona and Beirut

It could be recalled on the 12th of May 2019, the SLRSA delegation consisting and led by the former Executive Director Ibrahim Sannoh and two others. (Arthur Brima, Acting Director of Transport, and Mr. Glen Cole, Management and System Analyst), departed first for Barcelona in Spain for three days and on the 16th of May 2019 departed for Beirut for another three days to conduct due diligence on the proposed implementation of an already signed contract between SLRSA and Autospect: for Periodic Vehicle Inspection (Motor Testing) and issuance of vehicle Licenses.

The team also observed that there were no offices of Autospect in both Barcelona and Beirut. What the team observe also is that Autospect intended to partner with both MAHA (a German brand headquartered in Germany) for the supply of their equipment and Resource Group Holdings for the use of their INKRIPT software solutions.

The SLRSA delegation recommended the following to the Board and Transport Ministry: that the relationship between Autospect, MAHA, and Inkript should be clearly spelt out in the documents dictating the relationship, and should be presented to SLRSA; that a comprehensive and holistic investment package with costings be presented to SLRSA, as this will determine the duration of the lease period; and also previous and current financial statements of Autospect to be presented to SLRSA.

The Ministry of Transport and Aviation, which is the supervisory ministry for the Sierra Leone Road Safety Authority (SLRSA), failed to treat the matter with the seriousness that it deserved, especially as it was fully aware of the due diligence inspection trip, failed to adhere to the recommendations made by the SLRSA Team, proceed with the agreement, and today, this has brought more calamity on the nation with the cost of all issues dealt with by the SLRSA, gone up exponentially. These actions have not been in favor of the current SLRSA Management and the country, with mostly poor drivers and vehicle owners not getting value for their monies.

Since commencing operations, Autospect has succeeded in putting over 60% of the Road Safety Authority workforce out of jobs and shut down 17 stations across the country, a move that has created discord between Autospect and SLRSA, adversely affecting the good working relationship that should exist. The transfer of financial resources to the hands of these Lebanese operators has also been a cause for concern for many Sierra Leoneans, including SLRSA officials.

Among the changes that the company has brought is a complete change of the number plates, thereby rendering all old number plates irrelevant, and now puts a burden on the ordinary man to pay more cash for the change of their number plates etc.

Despite all these facts, as well as the revenue generated by the company, its Managing Director, Muhieddine Itani, said his company is currently running at a big loss, and are hopeful that in the near future, they will start making profit. “We want to stop all the leakages, fraud, no clean database, and the transfer of registration plates from one vehicle to another,” he said and furthered that their services are the cheapest in the West African sub-region. “What we are going to provide to the SLRSA is more than what they are generating at the moment,” Itani revealed.