Agencies Sign Up To Road Safety Plan

Heads of statutory agencies with the responsibility to help implement road safety actions have signed up to the National Road Safety Plan 2011-2013. Speaking at the function last Wednesday, the Minister of Transport, Mr Collins Dauda, said the government would not relent in reducing carnage on the road. He said in 2011 a road safety campaign was launched with strategies which resulted in the formulation of the National Road Safety Strategy (NRSS). Mr Dauda cautioned drivers against drinking and driving. He asked them to control their temper while driving and entreated the general public to help ensure safety on the roads. The Executive Director of the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), Mr Noble John Appiah, stated that the NRSC, as the lead statutory road safety agency, was required within the broad framework of the National Road Safety Strategy III (2011-2020) to coordinate the efforts of key road safety implementing agencies. According to him, the National Road Safety Action Plans (NRSAP) provided in specific details the counter measures that would be implemented by the implementing agencies over the period to deliver the expected reduction in national fatalities by 32 per cent by the year 2013 using the 2011 situation as a base. �The NRSAP will also provide the basis for the NRSC to conduct any performance monitoring and evaluation programme based on these set of actions developed by the agencies in collaboration with the NRSC,� Mr Appiah said. Justice Amegashie, chief executive of the Driver Vehicle and Licensing Authority (DVLA), said the stakeholders involved with the NSRR needed to work collectively to achieve what had been drafted in the Action Plan. He said the DVLA was committed to implementing the plans of the United Nations (UN) on road safety. Mr Amegashie stated that the DVLA was in the process of coming out with a probation test where drivers would be tested before licences were issued. Inspector-General of Police, Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye, stressed the need for enforcement as a way of tackling the problem of educating people on road safety. The National Road Safety Action Plans for 2011-13 was signed by the following lawful representatives on behalf of the implementing agencies: Mr Noble John Appiah, executive director, NRSC; Mr Justice Amegashie, chief executive of DVLA; Mr Paul Tawiah Quaye, the inspector-general of Police; Mr Peter Dagadu, chief executive, Ghana Highway Authority (GHA); Dr D.D. Darko, director - Department of Urban Roads (DUR); Mr E.N. Ashong, director - Department of Feeder Roads (DFR); Mr Samuel Kofi Addo, secretary general, Ghana Red Cross Society (GRCS) and Mr Tony Apedzi, deputy director, Human Resource , National Ambulance Service (NAS).