Government comes with plan to stem the tide of road carnage

Dar es Salaam. The government has promised to work with all stakeholders in a bid to end road accidents across the country.

This comes at a time when police data shows that over 100 people have been killed in various road accidents during the first half of the current calendar year.

Speaking during an event to pick winners of the Primary School Road Safety Competition in Dar es Salaam at the weekend, the deputy minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (Policy, Parliamentary Affairs, Labour, Employment, Youth and the Disabled), Mr Anthony Mavunde, called upon Tanzanians to emulate projects that seek to stem road accidents. A brainchild of Puma Energy Tanzania Limited, the Road Safety Competition has been in existence for the past five years and so far, event organisers say it has helped reduce accidents involving school children by up to 50 per cent.

“I am told accidents involving school buses have gone down by up to 50 per cent since the programme started. This is encouraging,” said Mr Mavunde.

Speaking during the event, the Puma Energy Tanzania general manager, Mr Philippe Corsaletti, said the competition seeks to equip the students with the knowledge of road safety.

He said since 2013, the training programme has reached 68,000 school-going children from 63 schools in Dar es Salaam, Arusha, Geita, Kilimanjaro, and Ruvuma.

This year alone, he said, the company, through a non-governmental organisation known as AMEND, has trained 9,152 students from 16 primary schools in Dar es Salaam and Ruvuma regions.

“Our target is to reach all primary schools across the country,” he said.

Mr Mavunde said it was encouraging that the company was planning to rollout the programme to all regions across the country.

“When you start educating youths on how to make use of roads they will grow up into people who respect the rule of law….They will learn to respect and obey the law without being forced to do so,” said Mr Mavunde.