Ivory Coast builds own buses

  1. Posted on Saturday 17 January 2009 - 05:25
    KingsleyKobo
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    Kingsley Kobo, AfricaNews reporter in Abidjan, Ivory Coast
    The engineering arm of Ivory Coast's national transport firm, Sotra, has locally manufactured three brand new buses in the country. Sotra, imports most of its vehicles from Europe and Asia over decades, but decided to adventure in local production that culminated in their first boat-bus in 2003.
    Ivory Coast bus
    The public has highly lauded the company’s initiative with some saying it would help the country and private individuals cut cost on expensive foreign vehicles.

    In 2005, Sotra announced that it was embarking on a “complete bus project” – dubbed building of buses by Ivorians for Ivorians. Our correspondent said the launching of Sotra’s first three buses came as a surprise to many some of whom were successfully transported across Abidjan, the Ivorian capital.

    Sotra’s Director, Mamadou Coulibaly, said the company had long been envisaging how to procure low-cost and less complicated buses fit for local utilization.

    “We wanted the transfer of technology in Africa, and we wanted to build buses of our own specification. The buses we used to import from Europe were too sophisticated and too costly. They had too many electronic devices. We don’t really need these kinds here,” Mamadou explained.

    Local engineers and analysts hailed the project and believe the buses would adapt to Ivory Coast’s degrading roads.

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