Head of Regulations, Inspection and Compliance at the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA), Kwame Atuahene has shared the statistics of deaths caused by road accident in the first three months of 2021.
Talking about the fatalities of the first quarter of the year he said, “in the first quarter about 779 fatalities have been recorded due to road accidents as compared to close to about 400 over that same period last year”.
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In an interview with Samuel Eshun on e. TV Ghana’s Factsheet he said, “If you look at it in that sense, it obviously creates a situation of discomfort but we must bear in mind that for the first quarter of last year, most part of our country was under lockdown so there wasn’t much of traffic activity.
But if we are to compare the situation to 2019 over the first quarter, I think the number of deaths was around 696 so you notice that without giving credibility or justification, you would appreciate that there is an increase and the rate of increase is not very huge”, he said.
He however mentioned that lives lost within the period could not be justified. “But from 2019 till now, the reality of our accident situation in the country was that we have added not less than about 300,000 vehicles on our roads. On the average about 150,000 vehicles are registered annually”.
He added that, “the reality again is that between 2019 and now we haven’t expanded our roads significantly. Over the same period, I can imagine that our friends with MTTD who have the responsibility to enforce the laws have kept a very constant number just like those of us at the authority”.
He emphasized, “We’re trying to do the best we can given the constraints we have in keeping the numbers low but we also acknowledge that there’s a lot that we can do. Presently, we are even doing considerably well with our limited resources”.
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He also commended the police saying, “The police is committed and they can do a lot more like enforcement of the law, advocacy from our perspective and a lot more. The road sector agencies responsible for fixing the road should also involve themselves more”.
He believes that together we can all help prevent road accidents in the country. “We require that the various duty bearers without leaving anybody will get involved and help us do more so we can see some significant changes on our roads”.
By: Gyamfuah Owusu-Ackom
