By GEORGINA MICHAEL
Where there is police there are roads, says former Minister for Police and new Minister for Works Peter Tsiamalili Jr.
He was speaking when officially handing over the Police Ministry to his successor, Sir John Pundari.
“Where there is police, there is roads. And so, now that we both are in hot seats, one of the interventions I want immediately is, we must fully implement that within every 60 kilometer, by the law of roads, there must be a safety area or stop area, in all the National Highways.
“And so, I instructed our design team yesterday to come to a design where all our national highways, the Highlands highways both the older and the newly built highways, must have a resting place, because, by law, you need to rest because of fatigue. Given that, Fatigue is one of the biggest killers of road traffic in our country, we seriously need to implement that.
“There must be a resting place and a police patrol base, and that must be captured into the corner, hence, that’s what our intervention does now that we both will be complementing each other’s responsibility.”
Sir John responded: “I am excited of the fact that, with the experience from the police department that you take home to the Department of Works, it should be made part of contractual obligation of a contractor, or otherwise a corporate social responsibility of the contractor to ensure that they build these police posts right along the highways or the roads that they construct.
“We need to now upgrade and ensure that we have highway patrols in as much as the resting centers along the highway that they will create it is in the interest of safety for those that will be using those roads. I am also glad that the two of us are indeed on the same page with this indicative to push for it.”