Malawi’s Minister of Transport and Public Works, Feston Kaupa, has expressed concern that despite the existence of several policies and legal frameworks aimed at enhancing road safety in Malawi, statistics of road carnages continue to rise at an alarming rate.
The Minister has since directed the Department of Road Traffic and Safety Services (DRTSS) and other law enforcement agencies to ensure that all motorists—including taxi and Kabaza operators—strictly adhere to the country’s road safety standards.
He issued the directive on Wednesday during a stakeholder engagement meeting with officials from DRTSS and the Road Safety Alert Foundation (ROSAF), which focused on identifying practical and urgent interventions to reverse the worrying trend.
Kaupa noted that accident-related deaths remain counterproductive to national development.
“Every year, our nation loses productive and promising citizens due to road accidents. This trend undermines our national development efforts and exerts pressure on our healthcare systems, where a large proportion of patients are victims of road accidents,” he said.He added:
“We need urgent change to protect our road users from preventable deaths, and that change must begin now.
”The Minister has since commended ROSAF for the ongoing interventions they are implementing across the country to help reduce road accidents.
ROSAF Executive Director, Joel Jere, said the organization intends to support the government in reducing road accidents by 50% by the year 2030.
In his remarks, DRTSS Director, Christopher Madalitso Kuyera, bemoaned the tendency of some road operators who deliberately choose to be complacent with the law.
He has since pledged to launch a fierce crackdown to deal with such malpractice.
