Harare,  (New Ziana) – The Government is deeply concern about the increasing number of road traffic accidents and fatalities, with the country recording an average of five deaths per day due to road crashes.

Speaking in the Senate, Transport and Infrastructure Development Minister Felix Mhona said the alarming statistics amounts to more than 2 000 deaths annually.

“We are actually worried as a Ministry with the numbers that we are witnessing on our roads, especially fatalities and even injuries. On average, we are witnessing 5 deaths per day, and per year we are in excess of 2 000,” he said.

Mhona said despite the presence of manned police roadblocks, some of the commuter omnibuses and buses involved in fatal accidents are later found to have been operating without proper documentation.

“We have been talking to my counterpart, the Minister of Home Affairs, to say that as much as we are manning our roads, at times you wonder that soon after a block, you hear that the bus or a commuter omnibus which would have passed through a manned roadblock has been involved in an accident,” he said.

To address the problem, Mhona said the government is strengthening enforcement mechanisms and introducing new technologies to reduce human interference in traffic law enforcement.

“Police and VID officials will now be held accountable if accidents occur involving vehicles that have passed through manned checkpoints. Wherever you involve human elements, there is the issue of connivance, and the only mitigatory measures we can have are through technologies such as cameras and monitoring systems,” he said.

He said the government has procured breathalyzers to curb drunk driving and promote sobriety among motorists as more than 90 percent of road accidents in Zimbabwe are caused by human error.

New Ziana