Traffic police commander Mohamed Mpinga

As this year’s road safety week to be marked from October 3-8 approaches, Tanzania Breweries Limited (TBL) has donated campaign materials worth 10m/- to the Tanzania traffic police.

Handing over the materials, which included caps and T-shirts bearing road safety messages, TBL corporate affairs and legal director Stephen Kilindo said his company realised how sensitive road safety was to national growth and how road accidents had claimed the lives of many Tanzanians, hence the reason for supporting the public awareness campaign.

“Our company knows and believes that information is power. Raising public awareness on road safety regulations and traffic rules is a powerful tool to controlling preventable road accidents and deaths. This is the reason why we have been actively participating in supporting the awareness campaign for the last five years,” he said.

The handing over was done at the traffic police headquarters in Dar es Salaam at the weekend.

The road safety week aims at rising public awareness on traffic rules and regulations to reduce preventable accidents, which often claim the lives of many Tanzanians. It will run under the theme: “Road safety requires action from everyone" and will be held at national level in Kagera region.

Kilindo said TBL was leading by example by complying with all legal requirements and traffic regulations.

He said despite the company’s efforts to observe road safety regulations to ensure their drivers were careful while on road, TBL hade faced some minor accidents involving scuffing on the bumper, side mirrors, tarpaulins, side steps and damaging the lights of their vehicles.

According to Kilindo, most of those accidents were caused by other vehicles driven by reckless drivers.

He mentioned that TBL had an elaborate system in place to enable them to manage their fleet effectively and observing road safety and traffic rules. He said although his company brew and sold beer, they had been in the frontline in campaigning for responsible drinking among its customers

“TBL has been campaigning for responsible drinking among our customers because it might be dangerous for their health and has been discouraging the habit of drinking while driving because it is very dangerous. We have been telling our customers never to drive while in a drunken state,” he said.

On his part, traffic police commander Mohamed Mpinga lauded TBL’s gesture of being interested in road safety not only by supporting the police in the awareness campaigns but also how it handled its fleets and drivers.

He said the awareness materials and safety stickers to be provided later, would help the police in achieving its goals of reaching out to as many people as possible during the road safety week and using it as a platform to refresh people’s minds on the need to adhere to road safety regulations.

Mpinga said safety stickers would help during a mandatory vehicle inspection, which was to be introduced soon.

“Although we have been carrying out vehicle inspection during the road safety week, the government plans to start routine mandatory vehicle inspection. This move will help us identify vehicles which are road unworthy so that we can phase them out,” he said.