Photo: Daily Monitor A boda boda rider takes six children to school.
A
United Nations special report released yesterday about safety on
Ugandan roads has shown that at least 10 people die daily on Kampala
roads due to boda boda accidents.
Ms Rosa Malango,
the UN resident coordinator, said this is the highest rate of road
traffic accidents in East Africa and is costing the country Shs4.4
trillion annually.
"This review comes
at a timely time. Road safety in Uganda is a serious challenge, but has
not attracted the attention it deserves. Uganda loses ten people per day
the highest in East Africa, meaning we are losing children and members
of the workforce estimated at Shs4.4 trillion, which is five per cent of
the GDP," she said.
While receiving the
report yesterday, Transport State Minister Aggrey Bagiire said
government requested the UN to conduct an independent study into the
cause of rampant accidents on Ugandan roads.
Some of the
findings point to lack of vehicle inspection centers, a dormant road
safety council, ill-trained drivers, unaudited road construction and
procurement of the projects, lack of accurate data on accidents as some
of the factors causing the mayhem.
"When I joined this
ministry, I wanted to abandon the appointment because I would be called
in the middle of the night to find out details about terrible
accidents. But we have tried and we are moving ahead," he said.
Mr Bagiire
highlighted registration and licensing of all bus drivers, transfer of
buses from the city centre, abolition of sugarcane loaded trucks on the
Jinja-Kampala highway and high taxes imposed on used vehicles as some of
the measures which were undertaken to curb the deaths.
"We finished with
the monsters - the bus drivers - and next are taxi drivers who we're
going to register and license. We want all vehicles on our roads
inspected and this is where we want Parliament to assist us," he said.
While releasing the
report, Jean Todt, the UN Secretary General's special envoy on road
safety, said Uganda and Cameron were chosen to assist in taking stock to
strengthen road safety. He said Uganda has all it takes to scale up
efforts to reduce road fatalities.
"We know that the
situation is challenging because one death alone is already too bad. We
need to revise the 1998 Road Safety and Road Safety Council Act," he
said.
He cited other
areas to be addressed to reduce accidents as road crush data collection,
periodic motor vehicle inspection, national drivers training
curriculum, and manual road safety audit, as well as enforcement of the
regulatory framework.
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