Group Employs Community Road Marshals to Improve Safety in Cross River State 

By Ugo Aliogo

As part of efforts to promote safety in its operations, Lafarge Africa Plc has facilitated the training and employment of about 16 youths in some parts of Cross River State. The youths will work as community road marshals in two Local Government Areas in the state. The company’s Director of Communications, Public Affairs and Sustainable Development Mrs. Folashade Ambrose-Medebem, who disclosed this to THISDAY in a statement, said the road safety awareness campaign was part of the company’s corporate social investments in the area of safety. He also noted that the benefitting communities were Akpabuyo and Akamkpa Local Government Areas.

In his remarks, the Lafarge Africa Plc Logistics Director, Bruno Hounkpati, whose team organised the Safety campaign said the objective of the campaign is to increase safety consciousness and encourage the involvement of regular residents in road safety management in the state. Hounkpati added that the group was in partnership with the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) and the Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs) in the state to facilitate the safety awareness campaign in the area. He stressed that the group would pay the wages of all the newly recruited community road marshals.

The statement said: “The Community Road Marshals will serve as first respondents to issues pertaining to road challenges and also give traffic directions to trucks and other road users. They will also facilitate timely dissemination of information and quicken the response time when there are emergency incidents on the road.

“The road safety awareness campaign involves educating and training all road users on the safe use of roads including how to interpret roads signs either as a motorist, motor cyclist or pedestrians. Over 250 Community members including motorcycle riders popularly called Okada have benefited from the awareness programme. All the Okada riders received crash helmets and reflective vest from Lafarge Africa Plc to enhance their safety on the road at any time of the day.”

 

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