The Minister for Transport, Hon. Kwaku Ofori Asiamah has revealed, Ghana has developed its 3^rd Strategy for road safety management dubbed the National Road Safety Strategy IV (2021- 2030). This Strategy, he noted was in line with the United Nation’s (UN) 2^nd Decade of Action for Road Safety which has the ultimate goal of reducing fatalities and injuries by 50 percent by the end of 2030.

“Not only have we developed a 10-year policy framework, a set of Action Plans that will see to the implementation of the strategy has also been developed. These and many others were some of the measures being implemented towards achieving the goals of reducing fatalities by 50%”, he added.

He mentioned that, Ghana was also reviewing our Road Traffic Act and Regulations to reflect changes and emerging trends in the road transport industry. This he stated may affect the use of our national roads by foreign drivers including those from neighboring countries within the sub-region such as Togo, La Cote D’ Ivoire, Benin, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, etc who ply our roads on daily basis mainly transporting goods from our harbours.

The Minister was speaking at a two-day Regional Workshop on the Implementation of the New Ecowas Road Safety Policy, Charter and Action Plan Held in Accra, Ghana.

Hon. Ofori Asiamah said the concept of a Road Safety Policy, Action Plans and Road Safety Charter for the ECOWAS Region commenced in March, 2021. This, he added, followed series of expert reviews and technical validation workshops in Accra and Abuja to fine-tune the various documents. He said, after the good work was done, he presented the Policy document at the 60^th Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Heads of States and Government Summit held in December 2021 and the document was adopted for implementation.

The Minister stated the multi-sectorial nature of road safety management within ECOWAS States made it complex for achieving results without collaboration from all stakeholders. It was therefore important that there was collaboration and work towards harmonizing the efforts to reduce the fatalities on the continent’s roads.

He mentioned, member states had been presented with an opportunity to collectively agree on the implementation timelines of the Action Plan to operationalize the Policy & Charter as well as agree on modalities for the implementation by all the stakeholders. He urged them to take advantage of the opportunity to draw-up concrete timelines towards the implementation of the activities under the Policy.

He said, it was important for member states to harmonize their approach to tackling road safety challenges. Without doubt, he noted, the experts had worked tirelessly towards the development of the Regional Road Safety Policy, Road Safety Charter and the Action Plan. He added the fate and destiny of member states were bound by our common challenges, strengths and potentials.

Hon Ofori Asiamah added, while we call on member countries to be committed towards the implementation of these blue prints, it is important that the Africa Union, UNECA through the SSATP and African Development Bank pull resources together to support countries in the implementation of the actions.

He urged the Expects to take the two-day workshop serious for the collective responsibility of our countries to make our roads safe for us to emerge strong and united to fighting the menace of road traffic crashes and casualties.