The new Director General of Land Transport, Sadat Girest Bokenga Manzekele, installed in his functions, on January 7, is expected on the files of the creation of the training center in driving heavy vehicles, the single registration file, the updating of texts regulating road traffic in the country.
The land transport sector is one of the key areas of the Congolese economy, as it creates many jobs and contributes to the dynamics of other sub-sectors of the economy. Despite its contribution to socio-economic development, this sector is even less supervised and public investments in this area remain insufficient.
Appointed in the Council of Ministers on December 24, this young lawyer will have to continue the reforms underway for several years. These include the establishment of the road traffic regulation committee in the Republic of Congo; the computerization of registration files of all vehicles in circulation in the country; strengthening of the procedure for issuing transport authorizations; updating of regulatory texts; the commissioning of traffic lights and the thorny program to create a large training centre for driving heavy-duty vehicles.
This project relating to the training centre is advocated by the government, both to arouse vocation among young Congolese and professionalize the activities of driving heavy trucks.
Other public structures have already followed suit, such as the National Fund for the Support of Employability and Learning which, in November 2020, trained around 20 young people to drive heavy trucks and engineering machinery.
The workforce is far from meeting the demand of local businesses looking for operators of construction machinery and heavy goods vehicles. “Faced with these many challenges, I call on the officers of the general directorate of land transport to work and to redouble their efforts,” said the new director general. He therefore urged his colleagues not to take the current context linked to the coronavirus pandemic as a decisive excuse.
It should be noted that Sadat Girest Bokenga Manzekele replaced Placide Mban in this post. Prior to his arrival as head of land transport, he acted as president of the juvenile court and trial judge at the Brazzaville tribunal de grande instance. From 2016 to March 2018, then 31 years old, he was at the head of the departmental direction of land transport of Brazzaville at the same time as the president of the local commission for driving license exams of the department of Brazzaville.
