The Federal Government has established a robust capital project development framework to encourage and increase public-private partnerships to deliver critical road projects.
Minister of Budget and National Planning, Sen. Udoma Udo Udoma, said this in a statement by his Media Adviser, James Akpandem, in Abuja, Thursday.
Udoma said this while inaugurating the Technical Working Group (TWG) of the National Road Safety Advisory Council.
He said one of the fastest ways of ensuring safety and security on the roads was by investing massively in road infrastructure, leveraging private sector investments.
The minister, however, told members of the TWG that the meeting after the inauguration would provide them an opportunity to get acquainted with the details of their assignment.
He said the meeting would also help them to familiarise with their role, adding that clarity on their role would help to actualise the goals and programmes outlined in the Nigeria Road Safety Strategy (NRSS).
He said that the vision of the NRRS was borne out of the desire by relevant stakeholders to stem the menace of road traffic accidents and the consequent loss of lives and destruction of property on our highways.
The NRSS, he said, was in line with the vision of UN Decade of Action for Road Safety: 2011 – 2020 as resolved by UN General Assembly in 2010.
According to him, the vision of NRRS is to reduce the rate of road traffic accidents and fatalities by 50 per cent by the year 2020.
“To achieve this goal, member states are required to forge a sustainable platform for a nationally coordinated response involving relevant stakeholders, including government, non-governmental organisations; communities, religious and traditional institutions as well as the media.
“It is in fulfilment of this that the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), working closely with the then National Planning Commission and other stakeholders took up the responsibility to articulate the NRSS document in 2010.
“They took up the responsibility to articulate the NRSS document with elaborate measures to secure active participation and constructive inputs from relevant stakeholders across board.’’
Udoma further said that NRSS fully aligned with the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (2017 – 2020), which places strong emphasis on safety, security and comfort of our people on the roads.
Also speaking, the Corps Marshall of the FRSC, Dr Boboye Oyeyemi, said the issue of road safety had become important in public health and economic development.
Oyeyemi said the country would have made huge progress if a national road safety strategy was developed earlier.
He said the overall objective of the document was to establish an integrated national approach towards reducing incessant occurrence of deaths and serious injuries, damage to property as a result of traffic crashes on Nigerian roads.