Truck donation to Zambia

In January 2017 two rigid trucks arrived in Zambia, having travelled from the UK to support efforts to reduce death and injury on the roads in Zambia. This is the second time that the Central England Cooperative have provided training vehicles to the Industrial Training Centre, a government training facility based in Lusaka.

In sub–Saharan Africa there is a critical shortage of skilled heavy goods vehicle (HGV) drivers and little quality training available. Every year globally, approximately 1.3 million people are killed in road crashes. Transaid is working with local partners to address a core part of this problem through improving professional driver training standards. Transaid has partnered with training centres in Tanzania and Zambia and is implementing a programme to build the capacity and capability of these centres to deliver quality training. This programme has been running since 2008. The Industrial Training Centre (ITC) is the leading vocational training centre in Zambia for driver training and related courses. The ITC employs over 40 staff and offers training on driver training, automotive engineering and electrical engineering. ITC trains over 600 truck drivers a year. Transaid focuses on supporting the driver training activities which include HGV training, PSV training, FLT training, defensive driver training, driver assessments and carriage of dangerous goods.

Transaid is supported by 32 corporate partners, many of who are active members of Transaid’s Professional Driver Training Consortium. The Consortium acts as an advisory group to the programme, helping with strategic advice and guidance. On hearing that two rigid trucks were heading to Zambia the Consortium kindly helped source spare parts which were loaded in the trucks. These included FLT tyres from Toyota, Impact Handling and Jungheinrich, truck tyres from Michelin and mirrors, a fan belt tensioner, headlamps and other parts from Iveco.

Gary Forster, Transaid’s Chief Executive comments; “As a landlocked country road transport is vital to Zambia’s economy. Training on rigid trucks in Zambia is in very high demand. The waiting list to get on this course can be several weeks, if not months, an illustration of why this donation is so important. Central England Cooperative has helped to ensure that ITC’s modest vehicle fleet is able to meet growing demand from the market and ultimately this will increase the number of skilled drivers and have a postive impact on road safety in the country”.

Professor F.D. Yamba, the ITC Board Chair remarks; ‘this donation will enhance our road safety campaign through driver training programmes looking at the growth of our transport industry in the community and the country at large. Such donations will strengthen our quality delivery of driver training.’