The Department of Transport and the Democratic Alliance (DA) were involved in a row at the weekend, with the ministry accusing the DA of stealing its ideas on road infrastructure management, commuter transportation and traffic law enforcement.
The Department of Transport and the Democratic Alliance (DA) were involved in a row at the weekend, with the ministry accusing the DA of stealing its ideas on road infrastructure management, commuter transportation and traffic law enforcement.
This comes at a time when the transport department is implementing measures to cut down overloading of trucks, traffic management and improving public passenger transport.
Department spokesman Ndivhuwo Mabaya said that while government developed policy, provincial and local governments were responsible for its implementation.
The DA said the aim of its document, titled On the Move, was to push for the implementation of policies that had long been dormant.
Mabaya said the proposals in the DA’s transport policy had been copied and modified from the government documents, Moving SA: The Road to Safety Strategy, and the draft road infrastructure strategic framework of SA.
“To us this is an endorsement that government transport policies have been researched across the world and designed to address all transport challenges in SA,” Mabaya said. “We note with interest that all our road safety interventions in our Road to Safety Strategy have been endorsed.”
DA transport spokesman Stuart Farrow said the department could develop as many documents as it wanted but this was irrelevant as it had not implemented most of them.
He cited the formation of the Road Traffic Management Corporation last year, aimed at pooling all traffic policing resources nationwide and developing a co-coordinated operational planning, traffic management and data gathering system.
On safety in the public passenger system, Mabaya said the taxi recapitalisation programme was about to start. There were also improvements in overload control and the recording of accidents on the country’s roads was now more than 90% accurate.
The DA, which has been most vocal in its criticism of the department, led the calls earlier this year for the dismissal of Transport Minister Dullah Omar following the high death toll on the country’s roads.
