KAKATA, Margibi County – The Government of Liberia through the Ministry of Transport on Wednesday launched the country’s first Traffic Warden Operations with the commissioning of 15 warden officers charged with the responsibility of buttressing the Liberian National Police (LNP) road safety operations.
Sirleaf R. Tyler, Deputy Minister for Administration and Insurance at the Transport Ministry making remarks at the launch in Monrovia, said that as Liberia endeavors with its development drive, the issue of road safety is a key component of national development.
“The worldwide average in term of GDP cost is 3% while for Liberia is 7.1%. We are behind and we need to catch up. In the areas of human capital and human death, every 100,000 of our citizens, 35 of them is expose to death due to road safety, the worldwide average is 11.” Deputy Minister Tyler disclosed.
He asserted that it was against that backdrop that the Transport Ministry and partners crafted the idea of introducing for the first time in Liberia Traffic Warden Operations with the commissioning of warden officers that would be touring the streets to carryout enforcement of road safety regulations.
For his part, the Deputy Minister for Land and Rail Transport, J. Darious Kollie, giving the background of the Traffic Warden Operations and presentation of the Traffic Warden Officers, noted that the Ministry has a peculiar role to play in the country in the area of road safety.
Continuing, Deputy Minister Kollie stated that: “The idea was given to birth to introduce the first of its kind traffic warden officers within the Republic of Liberia. The scope of operation of the Traffic Warden Officers is basically to be enhancing the work of the Liberian National Police”.
Presenting the Traffic Warden Officers, the Deputy Minister for Land and Rail Transport revealed that the officers were intensively trained by the Liberia National Police (LNP) in traffic management.
Conducting the official Launch, Minister of Transport, Samuel A. Wlue, presented four of the new 29 Suzuki Motorcycles procured by the National Road Fund of Liberia for the Traffic Warden Operations to the Liberian National Police to be used in support to the operations of the Traffic Warden in the Country.
Minister Samuel A. Wlue, however, pledged the Ministry’s continuous support to the LNP in order to enhance its work in the enforcement of road safety in Liberia for the benefit of all citizens.
Receiving the motorcycles on behalf of the Liberian National Police, LNP Chief of Public Safety, DCP John M. Saah, extended gratitude to the Ministry of Transport through its Minister for the formation of the Road Safety Secretariat of Liberia and the donation of the motorcycles.
He at the same time challenged the 15 newly commissioned Traffic Warden Officers to fully applied the acknowledge acquired at the Police Academy, promising to onward assigned the four motorcycles to public safety officials that will be charged with the task of responding to the calls of the Traffic Warden Officers.
“We are going to work with the Ministry to making ensure that our people are safe as they move along the road, as they go from farm to market, as they go from school to home, as they go from home to work because our people are dying every day as the result of road traffic accident.” DCP John M. Saah asserted.
The LNP Chief of Public Safety, however, craved the need to amend the vehicle and traffic law of Liberia, adding that: “our vehicle and traffic law is an old one. It was made since the 50s and since then there has not been an amendment”.