By Anthony Apubeo, GNA
Bolgatanga, March 21, GNA – Reverend Ismaila Awudu, the Board Chairman of the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) has called on stakeholders to intensify education on road safety measures.
The Board Chairman made the call when he accompanied Mrs May Obiri-Yeboah, the Executive Director of the NRSC and the Management Board of the Commission on a working visit to the Upper East Region as part of working tour of Northern Ghana.
The visit, formed part of measures to solicit for the support and cooperation of critical stakeholders to help the Commission to drum home the message of road safety measures, compliance and traffic regulations.
The team engaged the Upper East Regional Coordinating Council, the Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly, the Ghana Highways Authority, the Ghana Police Service, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority, the National Commission for Civic Education, religious leaders and other influential stakeholders in the region.
Reverend Awudu disclosed that road crash fatality index, in northern part of the country had increased to more than 100 percent in 2018.
He said through road crashes, the country had lost many of the energetic human resource base who could have contributed significantly to the development of their communities and the country as a whole.
The Board Chair, indicated that, if measures were not taken to curb the rate at which families continued to lose their breadwinners through accidents, the poverty cycle would worsened and government’s Sustainable Development agenda, would be fruitless.
Reverend Awudu explained that most road users especially motorbike and tricycle riders were ignorant about road safety measures and regulations and continued to flout them, thereby, causing congestion and crashes on the road.
The Board Chairman appealed to stakeholders to view public safety on the road as a shared civic responsibility and mainstream road safety compliance education into their programmes to enable them intensify the education, which will help reduce the incident of road crashes and loss of human resources.
Whilst admonishing the various assemblies to cooperate effectively with the law enforcement agencies to ensure sanity on the roads, he noted that all was set to undertake a nationwide consultation with regards to the review of the Legislative Instrument (LI 2180).
He said this would enable government to take inputs and make informed decisions as to whether or not motorbikes and tricycles should be regularized or banned.
The stakeholders expressed their commitment to intensify their various roles to contribute to safety on the roads and suggested that the review committee of LI 2180, should recommend the regularization of the operations of the tricycles, adding that, it had provided employment for young people in the region.
Mr Mahammudu Azonko, the Regional Coordinating Director, reiterated RCC’s commitment to road safety issues and said the transport department was working hard to hold periodic training workshops for its drivers to equip them with rules and regulations on the road.
GNA
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