The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has signed a five-year road safety partnership agreement with Bloomberg Initiative Global Road Safety to promote safety on the city’s roads.
Under the agreement, the AMA will establish an enforcement guard unit to complement the efforts of the various security agencies in ensuring safety on the roads.
The unit will be enforcing traffic regulations in and around the business centres to deal with offences such as riding without helmets, riding on pedestrian walkways, driving on the shoulders of the road, among other traffic offences.
Accra was among 10 cities selected by the United States of America-based Bloomberg Philanthropies, a non-profit organisation, to benefit from technical assistance to enhance road safety in the metropolis. The programme is being implemented in collaboration with the World Bank, Union North America, and Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP).
Road Safety forum
The Chief Executive Officer of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Dr Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije, announced this at the opening ceremony of a high-level forum for enhancing road safety through data-led enforcement in Accra last Thursday.
It was organised by the assembly in collaboration with GRSP and Bloomberg Initiative for Global Safety.
Participants in the forum included representatives of the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), the Motor Traffic and Transport Department (MTTD) of the Ghana Police Service, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), the Ghana Highway Authority (GHA), the Department of Urban Roads and the AMA.
The forum sought to identify road safety-related problems in order to provide effective solutions for implementation by the AMA.
Implementation
On how the programme was going to be implemented, Dr Vanderpuije said road safety experts from the implementing partners would join the city authorities to hold capacity-building workshops and road-traffic transport surveys and audits.
He explained that the objective of those exercises would be to assess the city’s capacity for efficiency in road safety and public transport management and propose solutions in line with the global best road safety practices for consideration by the AMA.
Dr Vanderpije called on road safety stakeholders in the city, particularly policy makers, private companies, civil society organisations and the media, to participate in the project whenever it was appropriate.
Work done so far
Dr Vanderpujie said in preparation for the implementation of the project, the assembly had designated an office on the AMA Roads Unit premises and appointed three project officers responsible for coordination, infrastructure and transport enforcement.
He said the assembly had also set up a steering committee comprising representatives of the AMA, NRSC, DVLA, MTTD, GHA and the Department of Urban Roads to assume oversight responsibility for the project.
A representative of the GRSP, Madam Gayle Di Pietro, highlighted some road-safety enforcement programmes within the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety (BIGRS) programme.
She stressed the need to promote safe road-user behaviours and reduce high-risk behaviours through police enforcement and mass media and social-marketing campaigns.
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