About 100 National Service Personnel (NSP) who have been posted to the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) have undergone a three-day training on basic insurance.
Under the Urban Traffic Management module for their 2022/2023 service year, the module was instituted in 2015 to complement the efforts of the Police MTTD to sensitise and educate the public on road safety and traffic issues.
The training organised by the National Insurance Commission (NIC) was to prepare them for motor traffic duties ahead of the yuletide.
Speaking at the opening of the training, Director-General of the MTTD of GPS, Commissioner of Police (COP) Francis Ebenezer Doku, said participants would be educated on basic insurance processes and the Motor Insurance Database (MID), introduced by NIC to check fake insurance stickers.
The objective of the training programme for the security agencies’ personnel was to create insurance awareness and providing an avenue for the participants to develop an interest in a career in insurance.
“This programme is geared towards adding human resource to the MTTD for the effective management of road traffic. It is my expectation that NSP personnel will better appreciate the police-citizen relationship and also get rid of the negative stereotype they have about the police service,” he stated.
He commended the NIC for sponsoring the training and orientation programme to educate the NSP personnel on insurance and traffic duties ahead of the Christmas.
The Commissioner of Insurance, Dr Justice Ofori, in a speech read in his behalf by the Head of Public Relations, Mawuli Zogbenu, said the collaboration between the MTTD and Commission was helping reduction of road carnage across the country.
According to him, available statistics from the Police MTTD showed that motor accidents and crashes for the first five months of the year from January to May, 2022 stood at 6,472 representing a 4.67 per cent reduction from last year’s figure of 6,789.
On injuries, the NIC Commissioner indicated that statistics from MTTD that the figure declined by 4.98 within the same review period from 6,967 to 6,620 while death-related accidents declined by nine per cent from 1,250 people in January to May 2021 to 1,140 during the same period in 2022.
The Insurance Commissioner added that “Ensuring sanity and protection on our roads were legally and mandatorily provided by two functions; the police and insurance and our collaborative efforts are so far yielding the necessary results.”
He said the functions of NIC per sections two and three of the Insurance Act 2021, (Act 1061), included supporting and encouraging financial inclusion, promoting public awareness and undertaking public education on insurance.
“This orientation programme for NSP is a priority to the NIC. The programmes will continue to centre on the basic principles of insurance and the MID which is of utmost relevance to these personnel deployed on our roads especially as the Christmas festivities fast approach,” he said.
BY KINGSLEY ASARE
