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By Lamin Njie, Assistant Information Officer, Ministry of Works
In a bid to improve road safety standards and to minimise accidents on the roads, The Ministry of Transport, Works and Infrastructure (MotWI), in partnership with relevant stakeholders in the transport sector, will soon rolled out a nation-wide road safety survey, starting with The Greater Banjul Area (GBA).
To implement this noble goal, on Saturday 18th July, 2020, a pre-test road safety survey was carried out around the busy Tipa Garage at Bakoteh. During this exercise, different categories of road users such as commercial, private drivers, pedestrians, motorcyclists and Cyclists were interviewed as to their understanding of the importance of observing road safety rules and related matters.
Essa Drammeh, the Director of Planning at The Ministry of Transport, Works and Infrastructure, said, “We have developed road safety policy to improve safety across the country as embedded in The National Transport Policy, 2018/2027.”
According to him, a key recommendation in that policy is to improve road safety institutional management in The Gambia, by constituting working groups, committees and units within the Ministry. He added that whilst the road safety committee will serve as the board, the safety unit will serve as the secretariat for the safety working group.
“Development of a road safety strategy for The Gambia was also a strong policy recommendation. And as such, a road safety strategy was developed with support from the Sub-Saharan Transport Policy Program. The strategy is now about to be implemented and a key step in this endeavor is the development of a communication strategy for the successful implementation of the strategy”, Drammeh said.
Mr. Drammeh also stated that the purpose of the survey is to help developed the communication strategy questionnaires to see what the key messages on road safety themes are during campaigns and sensitisation programs. This survey according to him is basically within the Greater Banjul Area, but campaigns targeting the whole country will be done.
He further stated that his office will work with all relevant stakeholders to conduct the activity including the media, communities and other stakeholders during the campaign and sensitisation programs.
“We already have the road safety work plan for 2020, but affected by Covid-19 pandemic, not withstanding, after the survey, the sensitisation and implementations of various interventions will start,” he concluded.