It is indeed a humbling experience for me to grace these women driven initiative, which I think will go a long way in repositioning women, especially those who are members of our law enforcement agencies.
Before I proceed with my address, let me first take this opportunity to congratulate all 30 female traffic officers, South African Police Service (SAPS) members and road safety officials, who participated in that successful Women’s Day roadblock, which was held at Kei Bridge.
That multi disciplinary roadblock stopped and checked 366 vehicles. As a result, they also found:
* 17 driving licence cases
* 13 unlicensed motor vehicles
* 14 overloaded vehicles
* 4 drivers without safety belts
* 1 public transport vehicle driving without the route permit
A total of 61 cases worth R23, 050.00 were recorded.
Once more, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the South African National Blood Service for their support in this initiative as we intend to encourage people to donate blood and save lives. I hope that we will continue to work together as we go around the province.
We know that women continue to be severely affected by road accidents, as they always remain with a burden of raising fatherless children under difficult circumstances.
Sometimes, while trying to make ends meet for their children using our public transport system, they get involved in accidents.
By embarking on this initiative today, we are sending a clear message that women are ready to provide a lasting solution to road carnage that continues to haunt our young democracy.
This is in line with the commitment that the democratic state made 11 years ago, when South Africa joined the South African Development Community (SADC) Heads of States in signing the Declaration on Gender and Development, where our leaders committed our country to ensuring the introduction and promotion of gender sensitisation and training of all service providers engaged in the administration of justice, such as judicial officers, prosecutors, police, prisons, welfare and health officials.
As we march together in this second decade of our freedom, we cannot say we are progressing as a nation unless women of our country are truly liberated and have reached a state of gender equality.
Decisive and visible advances have been made since the advent of democracy to achieve this objective despite the harsh realities that still face the majority of women in South Africa. We are aware of the fact that women still withstand the worst of poverty and underdevelopment.
Their lives are characterised by low levels of literacy, unemployment and inequitable access to education; inadequate food, health care, housing, water and other resources. Moreover, many women are still subjected to various forms of violence on a daily basis, directed at them by virtue of their gender.
As we grapple with the transformation our country on principles of democracy, women have a role to play to ensure that we build a solid foundation for future generations.
The Department of Transport in the Eastern Cape has recommitted itself towards ensuring that government policies on gender equality are implemented through massive recruitment of young women, especially in the traffic law enforcement division, in order to strengthen our capacity.
Through our Human Resource Development Strategy, we will continue to increase the number of traffic officers, transport economists, civil and mechanical engineers and other transport related specialists through offering bursaries.
The main purpose is to address the challenge of shortage of traffic officers and other technical skills in the province in order to realise the Provincial Growth and Development Plan (PGDP) targets.
As we continue with our Arrive Alive Campaign, which is a continuous and tactical strategy designed to achieve effective practical co-operation between the three spheres of government in all ongoing road traffic and road safety management, we believe that working together with other law enforcement agencies, we can be able to reduce the number of accidents on our roads.
Our main target, include:
* Conducting pro-active and high visible patrols on national and provincial roads
* Providing an efficient emergency and law enforcement response
As we speak, we have a roving Provincial Special Operations Task Team that has a significant number of women. In this Women’s Month alone, this team has arrested 209 drunk drivers on our roads, which clearly demonstrates that women are equal to the task.
The main goal is to promote road traffic safety in general throughout the province in order to reduce road accidents, fatalities and injuries as well as combating road traffic offences by means of a multi-disciplinary “Zero Tolerance” approach.
The people of the Eastern Cape and our visitors pin their hopes on law enforcement agencies, particularly our traffic officers, to provide a safe passage to this beautiful province.
You are therefore charged with a responsibility to ensure that we have an accident free period. Traffic officers are the face of government, because of their constant interaction with people and they represent the people of the Eastern Cape to the visitors.
This work gives you little family time and you brave the extremely hot and cold weathers of the Eastern Cape Province in a quest to maintain law and order on our roads.
In conclusion, I would like to once more salute all of you for this good initiative and hope that we will continue to work together to provide a safe passage for our people and visitors.
I thank you.
Issued by: Department of Transport, Safety and Liaison, Eastern Cape Provincial Government
14 August 2009
