A Ranking Member on the Roads and Transport Committee of Parliament has lamented the inability of the National Road Safety Authority to implement regulations to reduce road carnage.

Kwame Governs Agbodza says the education and awareness creation measures towards sensitizing the public have been greatly affected.

“Government is failing to provide adequate resources in terms of money for them to recruit the requisite number of people, and also to establish the offices that they said they were going to establish in all districts,” he told JoyNews.

In December 2020, Parliament passed the Road Traffic Amendment Law empowering the NRSC to execute its mandate.

This action among others, saw the introduction of stiffer punishment for road traffic offenders whose actions lead to the death of even an unborn child.

Three months after the passage of this law, road accidents have already claimed 771 lives as of March 2021.

This essentially means more people have died due to road carnage in the first quarter of 2021 than the number of lives cumulatively claimed by Covid-19 (752 as of April 3, 2021) since the country recorded its first two case in March last year.

As long as the NRSA remains under-resourced, the Legislative instrument cannot bite, according to the Adaklu Member of Parliament.

“So if they are unable to do their work right now, it cannot entirely be the issue of how do you call it a waiting for the legislation is simply because government is failing to find them,” he said.

Recalling a debate in Parliament over the taxation of petroleum products, he argued that “one of the best ways you can you can use this is to use it in ways that can reduce carnage on our road.”

“So use 5% of that money and support National Road Safety Authority so that they can do this where the government threw it out,” the MP bemoaned.

However, this is not enough if road accidents remains rampant, ridding the country of the much needed human capital for national development.

“So no matter what the law says, if government is unable to support National Road Safety Authority to do the recruitment of the requisite number of people, retrain their own people. We are not going to be able to do this.”

2021 Court fines for road offences hit ¢322k

A total of ¢322,214 from court fines have been accumulated for road offences from January to March this year.

Fresh data collated by the police places the Ashanti Region on top in areas that have seen the most fines with ¢96,966.00.

The Greater Accra Region came second with ¢90,620.00 followed by the Western Region’s ¢80,388.00.

The Central, Eastern, Bono East, Volta, Western North and Bono Region follows respectively.

However, seven out of the 16 Regions in Ghana saw no court fines according to the MTTD.

Hotline Documentary, 'Crushed'

On April 12, JoyNews is set to premier a Hotline Documentary titled ‘Crushed’ highlighting the plight of road accident victims.

The report by Seth Kwame Kwame Boateng will further explore its impact as far as road traffic accident and its cost to the country.