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By: Alieu Jallow
The National Road Safety Authority and its stakeholders on Thursday 5th November 2020, held a validation workshop to validate the 2018 road safety policy.
Speaking during the opening ceremony Minister of Transport, Works and Infrastructure, Mr. Baye Lamin Jobe said the need for the workshop is meant to map out strategies that will minimise road deaths and accidents as its constitute the 7th highest death rate in the Gambia causing 115 deaths and 775 car crashes yearly.
Honourable Minister Jobe outlined that from 2018 to 2020, 71 fatal accidents were recorded with most of them within the West Coast Region thus raising alarms on authorities to include the road safety unit in the 2021 National budget.
Mr. Modou Ceesay Permanent Secretary at the said Ministry stressed the need for a more robust approach in addressing road safety as it faces certain realities which the government is less concern or doing less ranging from poor traffic management, roads, poor investment on road safety, bad vehicles, poor driving systems and cars.
“There are 3000 deaths globally with over 15,000 accidents with most of them occurring in developing countries. But officials are with the hope that the newly updated policy will craft out measures to minimise the rate of accidents”, said Permanent Secretary Ceesay