The Chief Executive of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Mohammed Adjei Sowah,has called for closer collaboration between the police and other stakeholders in the road safety sector to help address the risks that confront road users.
According to him, these issues, if properly addressed, would help deal with concerns about safety on our roads and reduce road traffic collisions as well as serious injuries in the city and the country at large to the barest minimum.
The AMA Chief Executive made this call on Wednesday when he hosted a virtual meeting with members of the Accra Road Safety Council to brainstorm on finding solutions to challenging road safety matters in the city of Accra and beyond.
Key among these hazards, he said, included aggressive street hawking and begging, illegal structures on roads and pedestrian walkways, signboards at junctions, vehicle repairs on roads and pedestrian walkways, building materials on roads and pedestrian pavements and damaged road furniture.
The council is a 13-member Road Safety Management Team mandatedto help minimise road traffic deaths and injuries in the city.
The Council, chaired by Mr Adjei Sowah himself and supported by the City Advisor on Climate Resilience and Sustainability, Desmond Appiah.
Other members include representatives of the Ministry of Transport, National Road Safety Authority (NRSA), Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), Ministry of Roads and Highways, Department of Urban Roads, (DUR) Ghana Highway Authority ( GHA), Ghana Police Service, Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the AMA Transport and Planning departments.
The MCE used the meeting to also charge Road Safety stakeholder organisations to champion the cause of making the issues of road safety a public health crisis in the country, adding that this would help in addressing issues of crashes, which claim innocent lives and disable many others.
He stated that road crash fatalities claimed 2,589 lives in 2020 while COVID-19 claimed 752 lives. This data shows that fatalities occurring from road crashes in the country far outweighed COVID-19 deaths and must be addressed with the utmost seriousness and maximum resources.
In a presentation, the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS) Coordinator for Ghana, Osei Kufuor, pointed out that governance and ownership of road safety, legal framework for road safety, road design and land use planning, motorcyclist non-compliance of traffic rules, driver testing/ licensing and behaviour, post-crash emergency response and care are critical issues that need to be addressed as a matter of urgency for the full realisation of a crash-free Accra and the nation at large.
The Director of Planning at the National Road Safety Authority, David Adonteng, indicated that the issues of road safety needed political champions who would play an instrumental role in making the issues of road safety priority for the government.
This meeting is held at the end of every quarter to harness the collaborative efforts of these stakeholders to effectively deal with challenging road safety issues.
3news
Pix -Mohammed Adjei Sowah
