Chronicle Editor
Michelle Nyanzira, Chronicle Reporter
GOVERNMENT has capacitated the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe (TSCZ) as it targets to reduce road traffic accidents by at least 25 percent by the year 2025.
Deputy Minister of Transport and Infrastructural development Mike Madiro on Wednesday commissioned 10 operational branded vehicles for the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe in Harare.
He said the vehicles will increase the mobility of the council as it executes its statutory mandate to among other duties, promote safety on roads and to disseminate information on road safety.
About 90 percent of road traffic accidents in the country are due to human error.
In 2016, said Dep Minister Madiro, the total number of accidents were 38 620 increasing to 42 430 in 2017.
He said Government treats matters of road safety seriously and high on its programming agenda is to, through sound policy and robust legislative frameworks, come up with modalities to mitigate effects of fatalities on the roads.
“In our national blueprint, the National Development Strategy (NDS) 1 for 2021-2025, the Government has come up with targets towards the safety of roads. Item 394 of NDS1 has acknowledged that while the poor condition of the road network has had direct and indirect impacts on the road transport safety, speeding and human error have also been major contributors of road accidents,” he said.
Dep Minister Madiro said motorists should exercise restraint on the roads.
He urged the TSCZ to embolden their communication strategy and play their crucial preventive role through education, awareness campaigns and other innovative means.
Deputy Minister Madiro appealed to road users to take heed of the messages disseminated to them in ongoing outreach programmes.
“My ministry will deploy teams of ZRP officers, VID personnel and Traffic Safety Officers where they are under instruction to arrest and cause prosecution of motorists who violate laid down regulations, including those found driving vehicles fitted with the illegal additional headlights,” he said.
Deputy Minister Madiro said all transporters who continue to violate the Road Traffic Act risk the withdrawal of their operators licences.
“This year we have deployed 25 teams of TSCZ and ZRP officers on the country’s major highways to raise awareness during the Heroes holiday period,” he said.
The Deputy Minister said the teams will be under strict instruction to follow WHO Guidelines and protocols on Covid-19.
He said inter-city travel remains banned and, therefore, there should be no unnecessary movement by non-essential service personnel. -@michieroxy
Online Reporter