adminPeriods like this should not be about the nation mourning the loss of hundreds of gainfully employed people as a result of what is often gross negligence on the roads.
Last year’s Heroes holiday statistics show that 14 of 19 people perished in a serious road accident in Centenary and 16 perished in the Nyazura crash robbing families of their breadwinners.
Importantly, corporates who have their most valuable asset, the human resource, at heart need to incorporate road safety into their occupational safety strategies and manage work-related safety and reduce road traffic incidents.
When the country loses its manpower due to the carnage on our roads, we lose an important aspect of our economic development — the human resource.
As Buy Zimbabwe we believe in the importance of companies focusing on their human resource as they build on the productivity and competitiveness of their products.
Anyone who visits Mimosa Mining Company’s head office will observe the sign on the gate that emphasises the importance of wearing a seatbelt.
The security personnel manning the gate will simply refuse to let you drive out of the complex without putting on your seatbelt.
Talk about a responsible approach to your visitors and employees, then Mimosa is a clear example right there.
The responsible mining company has gone a step further and launched the “Let’s Go Zero — Zero Harm is Possible” health and safety campaign which I shall share a little later but first and foremost allow me to put the action against road carnage into a global perspective.
The level of road carnage across the globe is so high that in 2010 governments around the world took the historic decision to intensify efforts over the next decade to address road carnage.
The UN General Assembly resolution proclaimed 2011-2020 the Decade of Action for Road Safety.
The declaration was tabled by the Russian Federation and co-sponsored by more than 90 countries. As part of the declaration, countries committed to reduce the number of road deaths by half by 2020.
In July 2009 transport ministers from the African continent attended the International Africa Make Roads Safe conference held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where they recommitted themselves to the Millennium Development Goals of improving road safety and halving the number of road fatalities by the year 2015.
The conference has been held annually ever since attracting participation of a variety of different industries including construction, telecommunications and transport.
Other African auto clubs involved include AA Uganda, AA Mozambique and our very own AA Zimbabwe and now we see Mimosa adding its footprint in the fight against road-related accidents through the “Let’s Go Zero — Zero Harm is possible” campaign.
The world’s vision for the future is “Getting to Zero-Zero” which is zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero Aids-related deaths and equally important to Mimosa Mining Company are the issues of safety at home, at the workplace and on the roads.
A recent fire incident at the company brought to the fore the importance of safety at the workplace and Mr Winston Chitando, the Mimosa chief executive and his team must be commended on their swift reaction and crisis management during and after the occurrence.
This came as clear testimony of the company’s focus on protecting its human resource as all 65 trapped miners were delivered safely from underground.
Due to the swift reaction of the company the incident had “zero” casualties.
Now with the current campaign, the mining company has realised that in life people either live, work and play and that all these daily routines are connected by travel.
This means that people and in particular, the employee spends most of their time on the road. As a result it becomes vital to ensure that they are safe at all times.
The key message then becomes live safe, work safe and play safe.
Since the mining company has practically demonstrated the importance of health and safety at the workplace, it is well placed to lead a nationwide campaign on Health and Safety.
Today, the company in partnership with the 15 contestants on the “My Own Boss” entrepreneurship reality television show and the Traffic Safety Council, will be taking the road safety campaign into the streets and spreading the message in suburbs in and around Harare.
The company has been successful in leveraging on a strong and known social responsibility base to speak as a responsible, caring social citizen.
Mimosa has committed itself to partnering a number of global and national partners that may not be directly related to mining in influencing positive healthy and safety policy that will make the global vision of sustainable action against road carnage a possibility.
As I close this week I wish to advise television viewers to look out for “My Own Boss” television reality show which will begin flighting on ZBC and free-to-air channel Africa Unite on August 22.
The 15 contestants who made it into the next round following the three-week training and mentorship boot camp were announced in the media beginning of this week.
I wish everyone a safe holiday.
Till next week . . . God Bless.
l Robert Muganda is the media and communications executive for Buy Zimbabwe For comments, contributions and partnership contact Buy Zimbabwe on:
Email: [email protected]
or [email protected]
Facebook: Buy Zimbabwe Campaign
Twitter: @BuyZimbabwe Campaign
Cell: 0772 714 233
Website: www.buyzimbabwe.org.zw
Online Reporter