Driving license inspectors are all suspended from Monday 26 April. The decision comes from the Ministry of Transport, which wants to improve the process for obtaining the permit. Meanwhile, it is the gendarmes who send the exams to the candidates. The sector is experiencing many dysfunctions linked to fraud and corruption, while the country is facing a worrying number of victims of traffic accidents.
as reported from Abidjan, Sidy Yansane
Twenty dead near Ferkéssedougou in the north on April 1, eight people charred after a collision on Easter Monday, ten deaths after a stacking in the Abidjan municipality of Abobo last Thursday … and the list is still long for this year.
Unfortunately, these statistics are nothing new. The average number of traffic accidents since 2018 has increased to 12,000 per year for 1,400 deaths. These figures from the Ministry of Transport drive it to speed up the reform of driving tests that began before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ongoing investigations have revealed facts about corruption and fraud in obtaining a driver’s license. All inspectors, officials of the Côte d’Ivoire State assigned to the theoretical and practical probationary service, shall be suspended for at least three months. They will be replaced by gendarmes.
Time for Transport Minister Amadou Koné to clean up the sector. “We have made investments in the road network in recent years. We have roads of better quality. In these accidents, there is an important part of the human cause. And we must attack all causes. This is what we do. So it is not an incrimination of the license as such, but there are many things we have decided to be uncompromising. “
The Minister of Transport, who also plans to reform the technical control of vehicles, aims to halve the number of traffic fatalities by 2025.
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