AT an emergency meeting to discuss traffic problems in Accra last Thursday, some officers of the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) of the Ghana Police Service in the Greater Accra Region decried the activities of unauthorised persons who used leaves to direct traffic. They asked such persons to desist from the practice, else they would be arrested and prosecuted. According to the officers, the boys who posed as traffic wardens engaged in criminal activities such as pilfering and begging.
Opinion is divided over the intended action of the police to deal with the unauthorised wardens whose activities, in some cases, cause inconvenience or lead to accidents on the roads. While some people hold the view that the police are right in taking the decision, others feel that the directive by the police is a recipe for disaster at traffic intersections, particularly when, in most cases, the traffic lights in the city do not work and policemen are not deployed to all the intersections.
The acting Commander of the Central MTTU, Superintendent S.K. Ntim, said the Police Administration was aware of the challenges and concerns of the public as a result of its decision to ban the traffic volunteers. He explained that a good manager must be able to improvise and achieve maximum results with limited resources.
The public shall judge the MTTU boss by how effectively he manages the situation without the traffic wardens.
On Sunday, September 29, this year, there was a fatal accident at the traffic intersection near the National Theatre because of confusion on the road when the traffic lights were out of order and motorists refused to observe the rules.
Perhaps if these wardens had been at the scene that fateful day, those lives would have been saved. Now the MTTU wants these volunteers out of the way or risk prosecution when it knows that its officers will not be able to be at all the intersections to facilitate the free flow of traffic and control any carnage on the roads.
We call on the city authorities to take urgent steps to repair all the traffic lights that are faulty and engage more traffic wardens to complement the efforts of personnel of the MTTU.
The traffic situation in the city will be better managed if more people are recruited into the Community Policing Unit of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) to direct and control traffic because in most advanced societies basic things like traffic control is left to city authorities so that the police can concentrate on their strict traditional role of maintaining law and order.
Ensuring order on our roads, particularly in the cities, does not need many resources if we put our priorities right. Now that the police have legislated the volunteer traffic wardens out of the streets, the DAILY GRAPHIC hopes that we will not wait until the situation gets out of hand before we begin to talk about what went wrong.
Let us fill the void that will be created by the decision to outlaw the activities of the volunteer traffic wardens by putting more policemen and wardens on the roads to direct traffic and also repair all faulty traffic lights.
A stitch in time, they say, saves nine.
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