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Govt. moves to tackle road accidents
—spending US$150,000 on consultancy to design road safety action plan
Kaieteur News – Amid a spike in road accidents, government through the Ministry of Public Works (MPW) is seeking help to address the situation.
Manager of Traffic/Safety and Maintenance, Kester Hinds in an interview with this publication recently explained that the ministry has recognised the urgent need for an intervention into the road safety situation. “It is imperative for us to understand the situation, so we can act accordingly,” he said.
Over 300 fatal accidents have been recorded this year thus far
As such, the Ministry is seeking Consultancy Services for the design of a Road Safety Action Plan, geared at analysing the situation and suggesting methods to address same.
In an advertisement published in the Sunday Kaieteur News, the ministry said, “The Consultancy Services will be used for the design of a Road Safety Action Plan (RSAP) including the studies needed to be developed and the activities required in implementing the programme. More specifically, this plan will diagnose and analyse the overall situation, identify key risks, opportunities and entry points for improvements and prepare an action plan of activities to be financed and implemented in order to reduce the number of road casualties and fatalities over time”.
According to Hinds, the Consultancy Services are estimated to cost about US$150,000. The estimated implementation period for the Consultancy is six months. He explained that the selected firm will be required to, not only analyse all categories of road accidents, but also the contributing factors, which will pave the way for measures to be adopted to address the risk factors.
Financing has been made available by the Inter- American Development Bank (IDB). Firms must be experienced in conducting road/traffic safety analysis, particularly relating to engineering, enforcement and investigation, Hinds pointed out.
Statistics reveal that there has been an increase in serious accidents, minor accidents and damage accidents. In fact, there was a 25 percent increase in serious accidents, with 248 recorded cases for 2020 in contrast to 309 cases for the year 2021 (corresponding period – end of October). Minor accidents increased by 53%, with a total of 444, compared to last year’s recorded cases of 291. Damage accidents saw an increase of 30%, while deaths decreased by 31%. Meanwhile, 106 cases of fatal accidents were recorded for the year 2020 in comparison to seventy-four (74) for the corresponding period in 2021. That is a 30% decrease.
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