Government's directive to the Motor Transport and Traffic Department (MTTD) of the Police Service to revert to its initial responsibility of removing broken down vehicles from the roads, seems to have hit rocks in the Brong Ahafo Region as the region cannot boast of a single working towing truck.
Following the suspension of the towing levy provided by the Road Traffic Regulations 2012 (LI 2180), Information Minister, Mustapha Hamid, directed the police to live up to their responsibility of ensuring broken down vehicles are towed off the country's roads, especially the highways to avert the occurrence of preventable crashes.
Road Traffic Regulations, 1974 (LI 952) and (LI 953) mandates the police to tow away abandoned vehicles on highways.
According to the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC), road accidents alone cost Ghana 1.6 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) annually, which translates into about 2,000 deaths on the average per year.
For instance, in 2015 and 2016 alone, 3,832 people died on the country’s roads, while 20,479 others were injured.
However, in the Brong Ahafo Region, the MTTD may have little to do to save lives.
In an interview with Peacefmonline.com, Superintendent Stella Sedame, the Commander for the MTTD in the region, disclosed that her outfit cannot boast of one towing truck which will make it easy to tow away broken down vehicles on the road.
She said "the MTTD in the region used to have some trucks to tow vehicles on the roads and at accident scenes but they have broken down so we have to rely on private towing companies."
Superintendent Sedame said the private towing companies are not reliable in terms of swift response, a situation she termed as "very pathetic."
She continued that:"the IGP knows we are under resourced.... I have been following up on the situation but nobody seems to care so much about it. We are only relying on hopes."
She contended that the directive from government will not be effective until the MTTD is well resourced to carry out that constitutional mandate.
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