By Bright Ntramah
President Akufo-Addo has directed the Ghana Police Service to strictly enforce traffic laws and regulations. Describing road accidents as a global public health issue, the President tasked Road safety agencies to as a matter of urgency come up with innovative and intelligent traffic management solutions to address the carnage on the country’s roads. Speaking in Accra at the maiden Kofi Annan Road Safety Award, the President bemoaned indiscipline and disrespect for road safety regulations.
Bright Ntramah reports that road crashes are said to be high in Africa compared to other Continents of the world. The Continent loses more than 300,000 annually through Road crashes. It is for this reason that the Kofi Annan Road Safety Award has been Instituted to motivate key stakeholders to develop and implement innovative and outstanding initiatives to save lives on Africa’s Road.
The Award is in the form of certificates of registration delivered to governments, private sector and other organisations as well as individuals who have made outstanding contributions to road safety. The maiden award was given to governments that performed well during the UN Decade of Action of Road Safety 2011-2020. The Minister of Transport, Kwaku Ofori Asiamah expressed worry over the number of road fatalities and called for proactive measures to reduce the carnage.
President Akufo-Addo noted that the current road Safety situation in the country is not satisfactory. He said the government will scale up investment in road safety issues and act timely and decisively to arrest the situation. He called for stronger collaboration among all stakeholders in addressing road safety issues.
Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa were among the first recipients of the awards.
