Uganda Breweries Limited won award for Excellence in Road Safety Awareness from the Uganda Professional Drivers' Network (UPDN). They were given an award for the “Best Road Safety Campaign of the Year” in light of their Wrong Side of the Road campaign.
UBL Corporate Relations Managers Brenda Kobutungi and Jackie Tahakanizibwa received the award from the Minister of Works and Transport Gen. Edward Katumba Wamala at the Annual Professional Drivers Conference that took place at Hotel Africana in Kampala.
According to the organizers of the conference, the award recognizes UBL’s efforts in championing positive drinking as it allows drivers to have an experiential Question and Answer session with their positive drinking champion on drinkdriving.drinkiq.com – an online platform dedicated to create more awareness of the effects of drink driving.
Speaking at the awards ceremony, Ms Kobutungi said that the brewery’s mission is to ensure that they influence consumer habits among their customers to promote “drinking better instead of more.”
“UBL is running the campaign to help users understand the effects of alcohol, and the shame and stigma that comes with drunk driving. We are committed to changing attitudes towards drink driving and ensuring that our customers drink better not more.” She said.
According to Faridah Nampiima, the Spokesperson of Traffic Police who was also at the awards ceremony, about 11 people on average die in road accidents in Uganda.
“During this festive season, we urge all road users to have self discipline, patience and change their attitude on the roads so that we reduce road crashes. Together we can have safe roads when we respect each other and also respect the rules of the road.” She emphasized.
The event guest of honor, Gen. Wamala thanked the organisers for pulling together all stakeholders for the conference and appealed to drivers to take the lessons learned from the conference and implement them in their work.
The Minister pledged to come up with SOPs that will help prevent drivers from exploitation by employers and make their profession better. He also made a call to drivers ahead of the festive season to be careful on the road and commit themselves to saving lives rather than taking them.
“As we go into the festive season, I appeal to you to be very careful on the road. I know some roads are very bad but once we are careful, we can greatly reduce the number of people dying on the roads. Let’s make the roads safer for us all.” He said.