FEC institutes 4-year national strategy on road safety

[FMINigeria]

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has instituted a four-year national strategy (2012 – 2016) on road safety policy in a bid to arrest the prevalence of deadly road crashes in the country.

Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku made the disclosure at a media briefing on the outcome of the weekly FEC meeting chaired by Vice President, Arc Namadi Sambo at the state House, Abuja on Wednesday, February 27.

He stated that the approval and constitution of the draft strategy followed its submission by the FRSC in response to the United Nations declaration of the present decade as a period to take action on road safety for all countries.

He said the Council however noted that the draft strategy was short of perfection as the FRSC needed to synergize more with the Ministries of Works, Health and Interior (Fire Service) to ensure that the strategy works as planned.

"In recent times, we have had high percentage of accidents and loss of lives on the roads. Though FRSC has done a lot of technical work with ICT to make sure laws is not broken and accidents are reduced. There are also emergency support for victims before moving them to hospitals and all that but there are still issues with our road safety that need to be tackled", Maku said.

He announced the inauguration of inter-ministerial committee by the Council to look at the draft strategy with a view to filling the gaps and report back to the Council in 6 weeks.

"The strategy was discussed extensively but before approval, more works need to be done and more synergy needs to be there between FRSC and works ministry. Even health and interior (fire service) need to be involved," he noted.

"The strategy will also involve training for drivers, licensing, and funds for road safety and more collaboration with state government", Maku added.

He stated further that the inter-ministerial committee will also embark on enlightenment and re-orientation of drivers and other road users.

Via: Federal Ministry of Information (FMI) Nigeria