The National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) has attributed its ineffectiveness in dealing with road carnage on Ghana’s roads to the absence of a governing board and Legislative Instruments to empower its enforcement activities.
While a Commission, the institution complained about its inability to sanction recalcitrant drivers to deter others.
However, a year after assuming the status of authority, some concerned stakeholders say not much has changed as more than 20 lives have perished in road crashes in the last week.
But the Head of Regulation, Inspection and Compliance at the Authority, Kwame Koduah Atuahene on the Citi Breakfast Show said his outfit is equally frustrated at its pace of work so far.
“The Authority is equally frustrated except that we do not want to appreciate the frustration to work because, in a very lawful environment, I cannot be able to reduce disobedience in the transport sector if the laws do not grant me the protocols to do so. Inasmuch as there is that level of frustration, I will indulge that we exercise a level of patience with the hope that we can scale over the next hurdle.”
He added that: “We have put up a very effective measure which will be outdoored in the coming week because all the preparations and discussions have been done. Unfortunately, we do not have aboard. The chairman of the last board terminated the work of the commission, and we are yet to get a board to help us with directions. We don’t have a board currently and the Ministry is putting in place the necessary things to get us with a governance system.”
Investigations into road carnage
Meanwhile, the NRSA says it has begun investigations to unravel circumstances that led to the death of some 12 people through road crashes.
On Saturday, some six members of a football academy at Offinso in the Ashanti Region died on the spot after a KIA Pregio vehicle they were travelling in veered off the road and fell into River Offin.
Four other persons were also confirmed dead following a head-on collision at Somanya in the Yilo Krobo Municipality of the Eastern Region.
On Sunday, September 20, 2020, a driver and his conductor were crushed to death by a tipper truck at Budumburam in the Central Region.
The Head of Regulation, Inspection, and Compliance at the National Road Safety, Authority Kwame Atuahene on the Citi Breakfast Show said the authority will come out with the results of their probe in due time.
“Our research department has begun investigations into the recent spate of accidents. It is consistent with our mandate when these incidents occur especially when it involves occasional vehicles we often take time to understand the extent of operational lapses as far as the road crashes are concerned. So we look at what else ought to be done going forward to avoid such incidents.”
On Monday, about eight persons got injured in a car crash involving six vehicles at Asuboi, a few kilometres from Kyekyewere in the Eastern Region.
The accident occurred at about 1 pm after a truck conveying tomatoes had a brake failure crashing into five others on the Accra-Kumasi highway.