The Provincial Traffic Control services in the Eastern Cape recently received 48 new vehicles from Fleet Africa Eastern Cape.
The Provincial Traffic Control services in the Eastern Cape recently received 48 new vehicles from Fleet Africa Eastern Cape.
In his speech at the handover in East London recently, MEC for Transport, Safety and Liaison, Ghishma Barry said: “For a long time, we have been experiencing challenges due to the shortage of vehicles for traffic law enforcement in our province.”
Barry added that there are 719 provincial traffic officers and 110 Fleet Africa vehicles. “Our Provincial Special Operations Task Team was forced to rent 28 vehicles from various service providers,” he said.
“Sometimes we were forced to have about four traffic officers patrolling in one vehicle, while some remained in offices doing administration work.”
Barry said with the new fleet no more vehicles will enter or leave the Eastern Province without being monitored by traffic officers “to avoid the disaster that occurred in the Western Cape Province, which involved a bus and passengers from the Eastern Cape”.
Barry said particular attention will be spent at all major routes to ensure vehicles are checked, especially public transport vehicles and all those that have been found to be unroadworthy would be removed from the road.
“The new vehicles that we are receiving today are going to be very helpful in enhancing service delivery by our Provincial Traffic Control Directorate and improve our capacity in preparation for the 2010 Fifa World Cup,” said Barry.
Various capacity-building programmes have been taking place since the last financial year, including refresher courses for the Provincial Traffic Officers.
There is currently a training programme underway for traffic law enforcement agencies in various districts focusing on Incident Management Systems (IMS) in an effort to improve their capacity of dealing with accident and incident scenes.
During the World Cup, road users will be encouraged to notify the Customer Care Centre through the toll free number 0800 644 644 about any accident or incident.
The Department of Transport will launch the Eastern Cape’s First Alcohol Testing Centre in Port Elizabeth on 4 June, which has been sponsored by South African Breweries, in an effort to intensify the law enforcement against drunken driving.
A similar centre will be opened in Mthatha later this year. Barry also send out a warning to all road users: “I would like to warn all road users in the province that we have now adopted a zero tolerance approach against all those who transgress the rules of the road.
Our traffic officers are ready to go in full force to restore law and order on roads.”
“Very soon, people are going to start losing points and ultimately their drivers’ licences, when the Eastern Cape starts the implementation of the Aarto demerit system,” Barry concluded.
