Roll-out of DRIP: 450 Drivers, operators undergo training in Upper East
As a major step towards the effective implementation of the District Road Improvement Programme, a two-day intensive training has been organised for 450 drivers and operators in the Upper East Region.
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The participants who were drawn from all the 15 municipal and district assemblies (MDAs) were taken through the operational manual of all the equipment since they were virtually different as compared to what they were already conversant with.
Also, they were taken through an intensive practical session, during which they were made to test-drive and operate the equipment before they were officially handed over to them to use in their respective MDAs.
Response
In an interview with the Daily Graphic during the training last Wednesday, the Regional DRIP Coordinator, Osman Musah, said the training was one of the responses to the weaknesses in a similar intervention in the past.
Mr Musah said a similar intervention failed due to several bottlenecks, but the recently launched DRIP is a carefully thought-through programme intended to improve road networks in the region and the nation as a whole.
He stressed that the training was to introduce the participants to the brand of equipment and operations so as to ensure efficiency in their use and added that the set of equipment for each district was meant for a particular job.
“This will ensure that the equipment will not be misused, as it will ensure that they last longer to carry out their mandate,” he said.
Mr Musah stated that aside from using the equipment to open up communities and towns where roads had been designated to improve access, “The intervention would deliver efficient road networks as well as facilitate the carting of farm produce to market and other commercial centres for sale, thereby improving agricultural production and commerce.”
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A total of 117 equipment are expected to be distributed among the 15 MDAs, while some would also be in the custody of the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC).
They include 15 tipper trucks, 15 backhoes, 15 rollers, 15 motor graders, five water tankers, six-wheel loaders, three bulldozers, three low beds and 30 concrete mixers.
Exposure
The Lead Trainer for DRIP in charge of the North-East and Upper East regions, Nana Agyemang Aikins Asuako, told the participants that the training was to primarily expose them to the safety precautions and other features of the equipment.
He said although many of them were already drivers and operators of similar equipment, it was essential for them to be taken through the training, so that they would be familiar with their usage.
He cautioned them against the misuse of the equipment since they had been fitted with trackers that would make it easy for them to know how a driver or operator was using the equipment in the line of duty.
The Acting Regional Coordinator, J A Plant Pool, the suppliers of the equipment, Maxwell Mba Yipaala, pointed out that the intervention was a bold step to regularly improve the road network in the region to ease movement and transportation.
He charged the operators to make good use of the equipment and take proper care of them as well, saying “such a move will obviously prevent regular maintenance of the equipment as a result of frequent breakdown.”
Avoiding frequent breakdown of the equipment for maintenance, Mr Yipaala said, would enable such funds to be channelled into procuring more trucks and equipment to augment what had already been provided under the programme.
Writer’s email: gilbert.agbey@graphic.com.gh