Bloody Statistics, Absurd Orders

Accident

Sixty persons lost their lives in the Brong Ahafo Region between January and March this year, a worrying data from just one of the ten regions in the country.

The N1 Highway claimed three more lives yesterday and only Heaven knows how many would follow suit even as we pray that should be the last blood shedding on that highway.

An infrastructural upgrade ironically becoming a nightmare is beyond imagination; human error and responsibilities on the part of largely commercial drivers are to blame.

Elsewhere in the Upper West Region, the regional minister there has charged the Police to ensure the safety of the roads in the country.                        

In spite of the aforementioned and disturbing statistics on the state of our roads, checks by the Police have been suspended as directed by COP Rose Atenga-Bio, the lady in charge of Administration at the Police Headquarters.

Just what this is intended to achieve is beyond our ken. News about the unusual directive came as a surprise to many who heard it and coming at a time when our highways have become slaughter roads is mind-boggling.

We find the directive worrying and therefore worth probing because the avoidable killing and maiming of citizens through recklessness on our highways should not remain a permanent feature in the country.

We dread the day when accidents no longer constitute news because of their frequency on our roads.

We ask the Police Administration, as represented by Rose, to take another look at this order because if it is to protect her fleet of vehicles plying the Madina to Accra route, she is doing a disservice to the country.

Let the management of the Police take it or not, there is a certain degree of sabotage against the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit of the security agency in our estimation.

Otherwise, how can personnel of the unit, regardless of the overzealousness of some of them, be stopped from undertaking motor checks in one breath and in another expected to ensure road safety. Let us be realistic about directives we issue because some of them would not help in the attainment of the objective of instilling discipline on our roads and saving lives.

Conflict of interests has a way of impeding efficiency when, for instance, those responsible for contributing towards road safety are themselves transport owners whose drivers flout road traffic regulations and policemen and women who attempt checking them stand the risk of being transferred to distant districts as a punitive action. Come on compatriots, let us be realistic and sincere with ourselves and be up and doing about moving this country forward.

We await a rebuttal from the PR Directorate which as usual would ramble on and on about the commitment of the Police Administration towards the maintenance of law and order. Have we not heard enough of such commitments which have mostly come to naught?

Anytime issues are raised about anomalies in state institutions especially, the Police PROs are authorized to quickly respond to the orders of their superiors in countering same in a manner seeking to rubbish such stories.

As we have pointed out on many occasions, it is not our wish to rundown critical state institutions such as the Ghana Police Service.

The media, and we humbly pride ourselves as being part of it, have assisted immensely in bettering the Ghana Police Service in diverse ways.

We have not rested on our oars in shielding the security agency from the interference of politicians even though each time we try doing this, the Public Affairs Directorate is ordered to print out the standard rejoinders to rubbish such interventions.

We would not stop our noble interventions as the fourth estate of the realm, regardless of how these are treated at the Police Headquarters.