Driving schools under review

THE transport ministry has embarked on a project to review the driving school system in the country to align it with those in the rest of southern and eastern Africa.

This is with regards to regulating driving schools.

Transportation policy and regulation director Cedric Limbo said yesterday that the regulations in place only regulate the driving instructors.

He was speaking at the delivery of the road safety message for the 2019/20 festive season by the line minister.

Limbo said they have developed a driving school model under the Tripartite Transport and Transit Facilitation Programme (TTTFP) in SADC, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) and the East African Community (EAC), and will be going on a study tour with the SADC model at the end of January 2020.

“The model under TTTFP will regulate driving schools in all tripartite regions, being Comesa, SADC and EAC,” he added.

Transport minister John Mutorwa yesterday admitted that the country’s transport system is outdated, and needs cleansing by setting up new rules and regulations for the sector.

The minister was speaking in response to calls to regulate driving schools and public transport, in line with the need to use the road responsibly to minimise the high accident rates in the country.

He said it is important for his ministry to look at the transport network to properly regulate factors such as the issuing of taxi permits and regulating the set-up of driving schools.

Mutorwa stressed that he sees a lot of driving schools countrywide, but there is no system in place to register these schools, and to look at the content they teach learner drivers.

There is thus a need to standardise the content, and monitor these schools.

“There must be a proper registration authority for these driving schools, whose responsibility would be to standardise them. This is a fundamental problem which needs to be addressed. We need to look at our system, as currently it is outdated,” he added.

Giving his festive season address, the minister said although Namibia is one of the countries with the best roads infrastructure on the continent, it has one of the highest road accidents and fatalities.

“Despite efforts by the government, the law-enforcement agencies, the National Roads Safety Council, the Motor-Vehicle Accident Fund, the Road Fund Administration, the Private Sector Forum and other stakeholders, progress on road safety has been slow,” he stated.

In order to deal with illegal driving schools countrywide, police chief inspector Alex Ganaseb said they have done tours countrywide to gather information on these, after which they would submit their findings to the transport minister’s office.

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