Africa-Press – Rwanda. Rwanda National Police (RNP) has been taking heat from social media users that it punishes road users with exorbitant fines to fund itself. On its part the police has time and again come out to assert that the assertion doesn’t have any factual basis and that the fines are contained in the law whose intention is to save lives.
But there is another aspect of fines that police hasn’t been saying: a significant portion of the fines goes back to the community. This year alone, the police invested Rwf 997million in community outreach projects such as building houses for vulnerable communities, helping cooperatives impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and providing electricity to more than 4,000 homes. In other words, although your Rwf25,000 traffic fine can go a long way, the police would rather you slow down.
Saving lives
To say that Traffic Police Officers board trucks or buses for deployment every day on our roads to extort money for Police own benefit, year-in-year-out, is an attempt to run away from the disaster that traffic accidents had become.
Some have even gone ahead to suggest that the speed limit cameras dotted all around Rwanda’s roads were installed for the same purpose; get more culprits to get more fines.
In the 2002 Presidential Order on the traffic police and road traffic, vehicles are to drive within speed limits of 25-80km per hour. Last year, speed cameras were installed at every few kilometers in Kigali. Signposts for most parts of the crowded city limit speeds of not more than 40km/h.
Many drivers, for one reason or another, have fallen victim of the traffic regulations. Drivers should actually be thankful that these controls are in place. They have saved many lives.
Here are the numbers. During the first ten months of 2019, which is before the cameras were put up, road accidents from over speeding claimed 739 people.
The cameras came last year. In same period of this year, according to Traffic Police data, indicates that the number of road accident victims dropped to 548.
This a whole 25.8% drop, which should actually be reason for celebration. The data suggests that the police goes the extra mile to save lives and to build communities.
I suspect the police hasn’t talked about the money from fines finding itself in the communities is because traffic violators will claim that they are contributing to the community development kitty. They would rather take the heat.
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