The Executive Vice President of Total Central and North African Operations, Mr. Jonathan Molapo has described the Federal Road Safety Corps as a government agency which has developed a unique culture on road safety management through the collection, collation and effective utilization of data on road crashes.
Speaking during an advocacy visit to the National Headquarters of the FRSC, Mr. Molapo said that the delegation from Total was in Nigeria to demonstrate its concern for road safety which he identified as one of the core values in Total's policy framework and initiatives.
According to him, the visit was part of a partnership arrangement with the FRSC which has made a remarkable impact in the area of road traffic administration and safety management, in addition to its outstanding lead agency role within the African Sub-Saharan region.
In his reaction, the FRSC Corps Marshal and Chief Executive, Osita Chidoka reiterated that road safety has remained a global concern which deserves serious attention by everyone. He added in the Corps' renewed drive to address the menace of heavy duty vehicles, has concluded plans to sponsor 40 officers to France on a train-the-trainer course under the Safe to Load project as part of the Corps' initiative to manage the fuel trucks. The proposed training programme is part of the Road Transport Safety Standardization Scheme (RTSSS) to ensure minimum safety standard among fleet operators in Nigeria.
According to the Corps Marshal, trucks constitute 30 percent of road crashes in the country and the FRSC has drawn a road map to check the wanton destruction of lives and property associated to articulated vehicles, which has impacted negatively on national growth. He added that the Corps is presently expanding its frontiers of partnership in the oil sector to leverage on an already existing commendable road culture to attract other players in the transport sector to this revolution to ensure sanity on the highways.
Chidoka also said that fleet operators under the RTSSS who fail to comply with this directive will be sanctioned appropriately because the thrust of the arrangement is to further inject order and control in the Road Transport Safety Standardization Scheme by ensuring that every fleet operator falls within the threshold of safety standards.
He also recalled the presentation by the transport specialist from the Sub-Saharan African Transport Programme (SSATP) , Per Methasien in Ethiopia last year after a review of the FRSC activities under the auspices of the World Bank, adding that the summit in Ethiopia reviewed critically, the developmental strides which the FRSC has taken to reposition road safety management at the national and regional levels and voted the Corps as the best lead agency on road safety in Africa.
One of the positives that earned the FRSC this commendation, according to the Corps Marshal was its far reaching achievements under Pillar 5 of the United Nations decade of action on road safety which borders on co-ordinating other relevant agencies to achieve set goals.
Via: Federal Road Safety Commission [FRSC] - Official Press Release