Transport Minister Sibusiso Ndebele has said that South Africa can no longer afford a business-as-usual approach to road safety.
Addressing Transport MECs and senior officials at a MinMec meeting in Cape Town earlier today, 23 August, Minister Ndebele called on MECs to ensure that road safety programmes in the various provinces are intensified in line with the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011 to 2020.
"South Africa can no longer afford a business-as-usual approach to road safety. The month of August has been horrific in terms of road crashes and deaths, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal. Provinces and municipalities should already be putting in place road safety plans for September to ensure there is no recurrence of what happened on our roads during August.
"Each province and municipality must know where, when, why, who, what and how in terms of road deaths in their respective areas. MECs and Mayors must ensure that all Traffic Chiefs provide a detailed weekly evaluation and analysis of road deaths for their policing areas, as well as corrective measures being implemented. There must be active participation from national, provincial and local government in this Decade of Action for Road Safety. We will be entering into Service Level Agreements with provinces and municipalities with specific road safety targets.
"These tragic deaths and the misery and grief they cause are not inevitable. They can be prevented, if measures are taken by all of us to ensure safe roads. We are therefore calling upon all South Africans to play your part in this Decade of Action," said Minister Ndebele.
The meeting agreed that the following five priorities must be urgently addressed by provinces and municipalities:
1. Improvement in the methodology and collection of road traffic crash data
2. Service Level Agreements to be concluded with regards to transport deliverables,
particularly road safety and traffic law enforcement
3. Licensing Centres - The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) to intensify investigations into acts of corruption and poor service delivery and provide recommendations
4. Enforcement on drunk driving to be stepped up
5. Provision of 24-hour traffic law enforcement to be rolled out across the country.
Other issues discussed at the meeting included the RTMC turn-around strategy, launch of the Southern African Development Community Decade of Action for Road Safety, status report of the R22 billion S'hamba Sonke Road Maintenance Programme targeting the repair of potholes and maintenance of the secondary road network, October Transport Month as well as report back from the mid-year Cabinet Lekgotla.
MinMec is a coordinating body chaired by the Minister and primarily comprises of the Deputy Minister, nine MECs for Transport and other key officials.
Enquiries:
Logan Maistry
Cell: 083 6444 050
