After a long tailback caused AMA Muhith to arrive an hour late to a programme yesterday, the finance minister slammed the capital’s traffic management system and called for a reform to the city’s traffic signal system.
“Tailbacks could be easily avoided by bringing discipline in traffic,” the minister told the inaugural ceremony of SME Financing Fair 2014 at the Hotel Sonargaon.
Arriving at the event an hour late, Muhith – the chief guest at the programme – apologised for his delay that caused the start of the fair to be pushed back.
The minister said although the government had spent large amounts of money to set up traffic lights, nobody cared about the signals. The traffic signal system should not stop, but it needed to be reformed, Muhith observed.
He also claimed that time was being wasted because of the lack of traffic management, which also needed to be improved.
Claiming that the roads in the city were not bad, the minister also criticised the people’s tendency of not following traffic signals.
Although being stuck in traffic jams for hours has become a part of the daily life for Dhaka residents, different media reports have often shown vehicles carrying cabinet members, lawmakers or other top government officials travelling on the wrong side of the road in order to escape tailbacks.
