WINDHOEK – Reports that rank Namibia as the country with the highest number of road deaths in the world per 100 000 people are “inaccurate and misleading,” the National Road Safety Council of Namibia (NRSC) and Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) Fund said in a joint statement.
Although the two institutions very much agree that “Namibia is in fact faced with a road carnage crisis”, they say “not to the level depicted” in the World Life Expectancy report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the report of the University of Michigan.
“The NRSC and the MVA Fund would like to unequivocally state that the information contained in the mentioned reports pertaining to road crashes and their resultant fatalities in Namibia are inaccurate, misleading and detrimental to Namibia’s good image and reputation,” read the statement signed by the MVA Fund Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Rosalia Martins and NRSC Executive Secretary Eugene Tendekule.
They say according to the ranking released by the WHO in 2012 and based on road crash data for the year 2011, Namibia’s fatality rate per 100 000 population was pegged at 25, and Namibia was ranked 35th in the world, third in SADC behind South Africa and Lesotho.
“In contrast, according to the data at our disposal, the country’s fatality rate per 100 000 population stood at 23.28. The difference is due to the fact that WHO collated data using estimated population numbers and used other formulas to accommodate underreporting, while we used actual population figures without corrective measures released after the 2011 census,” the statement said.
Martins and Tendekule said it “baffles us as to how the rate jumped from 25 to 45 over such a short period.” They further say even with the slight difference in the figures Namibia’s ranking will not be at the top of the table compared to countries such as South Africa and Lesotho.
The MVA Fund and the NRSC said they never contributed to the data of the WHO before the ranking was released and as such the two institutions “cannot conclusively support” WHO results.
It is important to note that road safety needs a multi-facetted approach, as per decade of action for the road safety of 2011- 2020, they say.
“For us to improve our road safety performance in the long run there is a need for Namibia to build a long-lasting road safety culture,” the statement said. Towards this end the Ministry of Education has approved incorporating road safety in the national school curriculum from grades 1 up to 12.
The MVA Fund, NRSC, Namibian Police and the Roads Authority are moving towards consolidating efforts and mobilizing strategic partners to tackle the escalating road carnage through sustainable year-long interventions, the statement added. “The collaboration during the last festive season was used to pilot the concept,” it further said.
According to the statement most road crashes can be attributed to human error. The MVA Fund and NRSC thus appealed to road users to play their part by making the right decisions.
“Drivers should be considerate of other road users and give them the choice to live,” they said in the statement.
By Kuzeeko Tjitemisa