Transport sector agencies urged to be innovative

The Minister of Transport, Mr Fifi Fiavi Kwetey, has asked agencies under the ministry to put in place innovative strategies to enhance service delivery.

He has also urged the institutions to establish structures to block all leakages in their finances.

“People tend to think that state agencies and anything that has to do with the government is less efficient. It is important for these state agencies to take pragmatic steps to clean any bad image the public have about them through the adoption of best practices,” he said.

Mr Kwetey made the call when he paid a familiarisation visit to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) and the National Road Safety Commission (NRSC) in Accra .

The visit, which was his first to those agencies since he took over as the Minister of Transport in February 2016, was to enable him to learn at first hand the state of affairs and the challenges facing these agencies.

At DVLA

The first port of call was the DVLA where the minister, accompanied by senior officials of the ministry, interacted with the management and staff.

Mr Kwetey lauded the efforts of the DVLA management in dealing with the daunting challenges it faced over the years and urged them to be prudent in the management of their finances.

He called on the management to put in place measures that would break all barriers to efficient licensing of vehicles and drivers in the country.

“Efforts ought to be made to remove all middlemen who provide fake licenses to unsuspecting members of the public,” he said.

The Chief Executive Officer of DVLA, Mr Noble  Appiah, said the outfit had advanced plans to remodel its offices to facilitate its operations.

He said the DVLA was also ready to enforce the law that required all drivers to fasten their seat belts before they ply the road in order to ensure road safety.

According to him, the vehicle licensing body had also rolled out an initiative to collaborate with metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) to build a robust road safety system at the grassroots.

The NRSC

At the NRSC,  the Executive Director of the Commission, Mrs May Obiri-Yeboah, said strategic plans had been put in place to reduce carnage on the road.

She mentioned the growing vehicle population in the country without a corresponding road safety regime, and weak mandate to manage road safety issues as some of the key challenges confronting the NRSC.

According to her, the NRSC was focused on stepping up its game on road safety education.

Mrs Obiri-Yeboah, therefore, appealed to the Ministry of Transport to establish a regulatory body for commercial passenger transport. 

“One major issue the commission is bedevilled with is the activities of motorcycle operators, who do not obey road traffic regulation at all. It is one of the areas where road crashes has risen,” she said.

She called for drastic and effective measures by the appropriate authorities, through strict enforcement, to curb the menace.

Mrs Obiri-Yeboah also called for spot fines and the arrest of pedestrians who use the road carelessly.