Story by Wellington Makonese
UNITED Nations Secretary General for Road Safety, Mr Jean Todt is in Zimbabwe where he has met government ministers to deliberate on issues around improving safety on roads.
The UN special envoy’s first port of call was the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development where Honourable Felix Mhona spoke on policy interventions that guide traffic operations.
“We are a nation that has laws on road safety and we seek to strengthen them together with the Traffic Safety Council. Other measures we are working around include road safety fund and we want to ratify to all the necessary conventions,” he said.
Mr Todt, then met Honourable Kazembe Kazembe, who spoke on enforcement strategies to reduce road carnage.
“The issue of road carnages, target to reduce by 50% by 2030, we are here to discuss. We were sharing a number recommendations in areas we can benefit from the UN and ways to embark on awareness.
“We are working together with the Ministry of Transport, we are carrying out a number of programmes. The need to enforce laws, people on the roads must be scared [to break the law]. As government, we are looking to deploy technologies to integrated solutions, deploying to assist technologies that will be used in several other areas. The need for post crush care is also part of what we have to do.”
The next port of call for Mr Todt was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
The UN special envoy highlighted the importance of collaboration to increase safety.
“We have been working with the Government of Zimbabwe at various levels through WHO and other agencies. The responsibility is not on them alone, but to educate society on road precautions and having control.”
Statistics from Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe (TSCZ) show that 14 600 people died and 74,000 were injured in road accidents between 2015 and 2022.
