Transport sector hostage to extortionists, evil politics: activists

Rights activists and politicians on Saturday urged the government to immediately implement the Road Transport Act 2018 after amending some sections of the law.

At a press conference they also said that without implementing the law it would not be possible to bring order in the road transport sector and ensure rights of the road users.

The Road Safety Foundation organised the press conference to dwell on the issue titled ‘Delay in implementation of the Road Transport Act 2018: Frustration among the public’ at the Dhaka Reporters Unity in the capital.

According to the statistics compiled by the foundation for the period between January and August this year, a total of 3,293 people were killed in 2,917 road accidents across the country.

While presenting the keynote paper RSF chief executive Saidur Rahman mentioned that following the student protest for road safety, triggered by the killing of two students of Shaheed Ramiz Uddin College by an astray speeding bus in the capital on July 29 last year, the government enacted the RTA in September 2018.

But the law was yet to be implemented while the government in the meantime formed a committee which recently prepared 111 recommendations on road safety and it (the government) formed a taskforce this month to implement the recommendations, he said.

Quoting the paper, Saidur pointed out that even the existing Motor Vehicles Ordinance 1983 was yet to be implemented fully and properly due to obstacles created by the transport owners and workers for their own interest.

The sector is plagued with a culture of extortion and a vested quarter is the beneficiary of this extortion while the relevant sections of the law have not been effected to prevent this practice, he resented.

The paper on the road transport sector situation also said that the government had recently taken an initiative to collect toll from highways and it regularly realised money in fines for violating traffic rules on roads.

This money should be used for the betterment of the sector only, it continued.

The paper argued that as the new law (the RTA) made first-party insurance mandatory instead of third-party insurance it would not be able to secure the interest of the victims of road accidents.

The foundation’s vice-chairman, Mohammad Shahjahan Siddique, said that they first demanded immediate amendments to the RTA based on their observation and then its implementation.

‘The road transport sector is hostage in the hands of a syndicate of corrupt people and extortionists while it [the sector] has been used by and under the evil influence of a kind of politics that is without any ideology,’ he said.

Socialist Party of Bangladesh central committee member Razequzzaman Ratan alleged that the authorities concerned did not have any attention in producing more drivers and solving their problems.

The Road Transport Act should be implemented by securing interests of all, he added.

Daily newspaper Prothom Alo’s joint editor Mizanur Rahman Khan urged the road accident victims to file cases for compensation, saying that the media should emphasise on this issue with importance.  

The foundation proposed to the authorities to ensure a proper appointment system for drivers, facilities for the pedestrians, implementation of multi-modal transport policy, a state-run fund for road accident victims and to control the ridesharing services in the capital and improve services on waterways and railways for facilitating better services on roads.

The briefing was attended, among others, by foundation chairman professor AI Mahbub Uddin Ahmed and vice-chairman professor Hasina Begum.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net