13 July 2007
Gaborone — The traffic police, the department of Road Transport and Safety (DRTS) and other volunteers say they are prepared to ensure road safety during the long weekend that starts today and ends on Tuesday next week.
It has become customary for these organisations to mount strategic roadblocks among other measures to ensure safety on Botswana's roads. Admittedly, such measures have resulted in marked and laudable reduction in road accidents and casualties.
The head of the traffic police, Bruno Paledi said they have mounted educational roadblocks at various points throughout the country. He added that his branch had started with spreading road safety messages to the public. Paledi decried drunken driving as the most serious problem on the roads.
He appealed to friends or relatives not to let their colleagues to drink and drive. He said they should adopt the attitude of strangers or acquaintances who intervene to prevent a would-be assailant brandishing a weapon in public from doing harm.
Paledi praised the cooperation the traffic police normally get from the motorists. He noted that the youth remain a problem because they are excitable. He appealed to all motorists to respect pedestrians, since "even a motorist who disembarks from the vehicle to go into a shop, instantly becomes a pedestrian".
The sterling work done by the police and other stakeholders is usually undermined by the poor maintenance of the national road network. It is not uncommon for a motorist, who had just had a refreshing talk at the roadblock to unsuspectingly bump into some livestock or wild animal that has been lurking behind overgrown bush along the national road network. Many a Motswana life has been lost in such a fashion. Yet this seem to be of less priority to authorities charged with road maintenance.
The head of the maintenance division of the Department of Roads, Patrick Mungoo acknowledged to Mmegi that their bush-clearing undertakings had not been effective. He attributed the division's dismal performance, in this regard, to budgetary constraints. Mungoo explained that the division runs two systems of maintaining the national road network. They either use the in-house, labour-based system or contracts out.
Presently, it is only the out-sourcing system that appears to work. The roads that benefit under this arrangement are the main Ramatlabama-Ramokgwebana, Gaborone-Molepolole, Gaborone-Kanye-Jwaneng, Lobatse-Kanye, and Gaborone-Tlokweng Border Gate.
These roads are not only regularly de-bushed but also have dedicated cattle-chasing patrol teams. Additionally, they are fenced. All the other roads are supposed to be maintained under in-house, labour-based arrangement of the maintenance division, which has a total workforce of 1,400.
These roads, the majority of which are unfenced, include Molepolole-Lephephe-Shoshong-Serowe, Jwaneng-Mamuno, Mamuno-Maun, Mohembo-Maun, Maun-Francistown, Nata-Kazungula, Serowe-Letlhakane-Rakops-Makalamabedi, and many others.
Mungoo said they intend to start out-sourcing the maintenance services for these roads from next year. Efforts to get comments from the newly-appointed director of the Department of Road Transport and Services, a certain Mookodi proved futile.
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