The Minister of Transport, Kweku Ofori Asiamah, has asked transport operators, drivers and other key stakeholders in the transport industry, to work together to reduce road accidents to the barest minimum.
He said it had become very necessary to treat road accidents as a health issue, since road accidents were claiming a lot of lives more than HIV and AIDS put together.
Speaking at an engagement with transport sector operators here in Kumasi yesterday, the Transport Minister stated, “If Ghanaians treat road accidents with the kind of urgency we give to diseases, a lot of lives would be saved daily.”
He disclosed that the Ministry would collaborate with the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) and the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service to intensify road surveillance to ensure road traffic regulations were obeyed.
The Executive Director of NRSA, Mrs May Obiri Yeboah, stated that the country was yet to see the kind of change the numerous interventions in road safety management had brought in terms of advocacy and awareness creation for the past nine years, as the country records an average of 10,000 road accidents every year.
Out of the number, she said, “2,000 persons are killed and 14, 000 also get injured annually, while at least, 6,000 of the injured are serious injuries that leave the victims incapacitated for the rest of their lives.”
The NRSA boss disclosed that, the 2019 projections for the number of persons killed and injured would not be realised considering that, it had already recorded 296 persons killed as at August 2019 against 350 projections and 1,960 injured as at August 2019 against 1,200 annual projection.
She indicated that, the Authority was looking forward to national projections of less than 1,000 persons killed and less than 3,000 persons in 2020 under the United Nations-led Decade of Action for Road Safety and the third National Road Safety Strategy (NRSS III:2011-2020).
FROM FAUSTINA KWABEA OSEI, KUMASI
