PUBLIC and private sectors have been challenged to join forces on ensuring the use of innovative technology to curb road accidents across the country.
Speaking during the official opening of the commemoration of Road Safety Week held at Furahisha grounds in Mwanza, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said that the public sectors have a bigger role to play by partnering with private sectors which are committed to innovative digital solutions to reduce the rate of road accidents.
“Collaborate with the private sectors to gain more experience and learn from them, it will assist to improve our systems and prevent loss of the lives of our people from road accidents,” he said.
That has been said when the Prime Minister visited Vodacom’s booth to learn about the tracking device system installed in their staff’s vehicles hence reducing the occurrence of accidents at the workplace for over ten years.
Mr Majaliwa added that to prevent fatal accidents that cost the lives of people, our institutions have a significant role to find a better solution to protect infrastructure and casualties, ‘for the past three years (2020/22) road accidents have claimed 1582 lives and led to 4372 casualties, this is unacceptable and needs to be solved,”
Speaking during the launch of the opening ceremony, Mwanza Regional Commissioner, Mr Adam Malima noted that it is the responsibility of every vehicle owner to insure his or her vehicle, not only for the sake of avoiding traffic policies on road but for their protection, pedestrians, passengers and others.
“There is a need to educate the importance of insurance to motorists. The laws that require each vehicle owner to ensure their vehicles were not meant to avoid being caught on the road but rather to protect them while on roads and the lives of the third parties. And that’s why insurance packages vary from one another,” he said.
“For that, I commend Vodacom’s initiatives, apart from being among the regular participants and sponsors of this activity they come up with different digital innovative solutions that impact positively the Tanzanian communities.
Through their VODA BIMA service, everyone with a mobile phone can easily access insurance services and be able to pay in installments without the hustle to visit insurance agencies physically,” he said.
The Road Safety Week nationally was launched at Furahisha grounds in Mwanza yesterday with the theme: ‘Tanzania Bila Ajali Inawezekana, Timiza Wajibu Wako’.
On his part Director of M-Pesa, Mr Epimack Mbeteni explained that VODA BIMA accessed through M-Pesa has come to challenge the status and ease accessibility of insurance services in Tanzania, the service offer payment in installments for a year and sends push notifications when the service is about to expire.
“Through VODA BIMA, a customer can easily join depending on a type of vehicle and start paying in installments for a year. To save time and serve a customer from getting caught on the road when the insurance expires, the service will send push notification messages when the payment is due.
