FG Inaugurates Technical Working Group on Road Safety

Ndubuisi Francis in Abuja

The federal government thursday disclosed that it has established a robust capital project development framework to encourage and increase public-private partnerships to deliver critical road projects in a bid to enhance safety, security and comfort on the roads

Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, who indicated this in Abuja yesterday while inaugurating the Technical Working Group (TWG) of the National Road Safety Advisory Council, said one of the fastest ways of ensuring safety and security on the roads is by investing massively in road infrastructure, leveraging private sector investments.

Udoma told members of the TWG that the meeting provides members an opportunity to get acquainted with the details of their assignment and the roles they are expected to play because clarity on their roles and responsibilities will help promote actualisation of the goals and programmes outlined in the Nigeria Road Safety Strategy (NRSS).

The vision of the NRSS, he explained, was borne out of the desire by relevant stakeholders to stem the menace of road traffic accidents and the consequent loss of lives and destruction of property on our highways.

The NRSS, he said, is in line with the vision of United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety: 2011 – 2020 as resolved by United Nations General Assembly in 2010, which is to reduce the rate of road traffic accidents and fatalities by 50 per cent by the year 2020.

“To achieve this goal, member states are required to forge a sustainable platform for a nationally coordinated response involving relevant stakeholders, including government, non-governmental organisations; communities, religious and traditional institutions as well as the Media.

“It is in fulfillment of this that the FRSC, working closely with the then National Planning Commission (NPC) and other stakeholders took up the responsibility to articulate the NRSS document in 2010 with elaborate measures to secure active participation and constructive inputs from relevant stakeholders across board,” he explained.

A statement issued by the minister’s Media Adviser, Mr. Akpandem James, said Udoma informed the group that in the course of the consultative efforts, stakeholders expressed overwhelming support, commitment and enthusiasm towards the success of a coordinated road safety management system in Nigeria through the NRSS document.

The document, he noted, took into consideration the multi-dimensional nature of road safety management in the country by outlining and harmonising the different road safety initiatives of the various tiers of government, international agencies, civil society organisations, the private sector and other stakeholders for collective action.

In his remarks, the Corps Marshall of the FRSC, Dr. Boboye Oyeyemi, confirmed that for some time now, road safety had become one of the defining issues in public health and economic development globally arising from the considerable degree of injuries victims sustain, lives and property loss, including roads and road infrastructure degradation.
He said that even though the country has made huge progress through the steps taken by government to establish the FRSC in 1988, the achievement could have been greater if a national road safety strategy was developed.
In another development, Udoma has disclosed that key recommendations of National Economic Summits are currently being implemented by federal government.

Specifically, he said most of the recommendations from NES 22 edition of last year had been mainstreamed in to the economic Recovery and Growth plan (EGRP) 2017-2020.

He confirmed this yesterday in Abuja at a formal inauguration of the joint planning committee for 23rd edition of National Economic Summit fixed between October 10 to 12 at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja.
The theme of the 23rd edition is: ‘Actualising the economic recovery and growth plan- opportunities, productivity and employment: a call to action.’