NRSC cautions road safety campaigners

The National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) has cautioned civil society organisations and corporate entities to seek the mandate of the commission before embarking on any road safety campaigns.

According to the commission, some organisations and individuals who embarked on such campaigns did not only fail to give accurate statistics but also lacked the requisite knowledge of road safety issues.

Extortion of funds

The Executive Director of NRSC, Mrs May Obiri-Yeboah, who stated this, at the launch of the Road Safety Project in Accra explained that some organisations were unlawfully using the commission’s name to solicit funds for their selfish interest.

“We will name and shame any organisation which flouts this directive; meanwhile, we are putting measures in place to punish such offenders”, she added.

Beware of ‘Goro’ boys

Touching on measures to ensure road safety in the country, the Chief Executive Officer of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority(DVLA), Mr Rudolph Beckley, cautioned drivers who patronised the services of ‘goro’ boys,  especially for fake electronic road worthy certificates.

According to him, the authority moved from the manual road worthy system to the electronic, to be ahead of the faking of road worthy certificates.

Currently, the electronic road worthy stickers have two components: the production component and the verification component, explaining that the verification components could not be faked since it was only the DVLA electronic system that could be used to decrypt the encoded information in the sticker.

Explaining further, he said the DVLA had procured over 120 machines for the police to detect the fake road worthy certificates and was in the process of procuring an additional 1,500  machines for the police.

Seat belt

Mr Beckley commended the Motor Traffic and Transport Department of the Ghana Police Service for their hard work which had enabled them to arrest drivers with fake road worthy certificates.

He denied rumours of the postponement of an exercise to ensure that vehicles were fitted with      seat belts. the project would kick-start in June this year as agreed by the stakeholders in the road and transport industry.

According to him, enforcement of the use of seat belts would commence in December to ensure that every driver respected the rules of the authority.