She noted that since her ministry was responsible to manage public affairs, some members of the public had visited them to find out what the ministry was doing to turn situation around.

“In order to respond to the clarion call by the public we decided to visit and to ascertain the reality of the story and to know the present condition of the buses”, she said, adding that despite the fact there were actually very few buses that were not in good working condition a good number of them were plying the various routes in the country.

Responding, SLRTC’s GM described the visit as a step in the right direction, adding that they were a government agency and should therefore be supervised.

“We know that public transportation has its challenges, but that would not make us sit by and allow 30 buses to be grounded without fixing them,” he assured, and confirmed that 7 buses were involved in road accidents and 4 out of those had developed engine difficulty.