Share

Peters: Provinces seek Sanral's help

Johannesburg - Provinces have asked Sanral to take over certain roads as they recognised their own limitations and challenges, Transport Minister Dipuo Peters said in Pretoria on Tuesday.

Provinces recognised the strengths the SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) brought to road maintenance, she told reporters.

"So it is one way of also making sure we can contribute to better road maintenance. [More than] 10% of good roads in South Africa are mostly under Sanral.

"That is why provinces actually want to add to the kilometres that Sanral needs to do and we are also looking at building the capacity and benefiting from the capacity of Sanral."

Peters said North West, Limpopo, the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal were already benefiting from Sanral's management of some of their roads.

"We have developed a new model where instead of one service provider having oversight over the entire nine provinces, we have broken down provinces into [groupings of] three, four, and two."

This would ensure government conducted appropriate oversight. She said the total value of road maintenance backlogs was around R150bn, which dwarfed the budget allocation provinces received.

Peters said bribing traffic officers contributed to the lawlessness on South Africa's roads.

"We are appealing to the moral conscience of our society... You contribute [through bribery] to allowing vehicles that are supposed to transport people becoming weapons," she said.

"But also, you contribute to allowing people to become murderers."

Given the knock-on effect it had on road safety across the country, corruption should be dealt with.

"We need to deal with corruption because it is that level of corruption that increases the carnage on our roads," Peters said.

Preliminary Easter weekend figures this year showed 193 people were killed in 148 crashes across the country.

The report was compiled by the police, evaluated by the Road Traffic Management Corporation, and verified by provincial transport departments.

KwaZulu-Natal had the highest number of fatalities with 49 (from 39 crashes), followed by the Eastern Cape with 36 (19), Limpopo 30 (23), and Gauteng 23 (22).

Mpumalanga had 19 (18), Free State 15 (9), followed by the Western Cape with 8 (6), North West 7 (7) and the Northern Cape 6 (5).

In 2013 there were 241 deaths from 201 crashes.

In 2012 there were 217 deaths in 181 crashes.

According to Peters, this meant headway had been made in reducing the number of crashes and road deaths on South Africa's roads. This was despite growth in both population size and the number of vehicles on the road.

Pedestrians accounted for 40% of those killed.

"This figure has become an almost permanent feature in our statistics. We need to really deal with the 40% of pedestrians. That is our biggest barrier right now."

She said 283 323 vehicles were stopped and checked, 43 433 notices issued, 1 094 vehicles discontinued, 1 457 vehicles impounded, 330 motorists were arrested for drunken driving, and 10 motorists arrested for reckless or negligent driving.

The figures captured were for the period starting from Thursday midnight, April 17, to midnight on Monday April 21.

We live in a world where facts and fiction get blurred
Who we choose to trust can have a profound impact on our lives. Join thousands of devoted South Africans who look to News24 to bring them news they can trust every day. As we celebrate 25 years, become a News24 subscriber as we strive to keep you informed, inspired and empowered.
Join News24 today
heading
description
username
Show Comments ()
Rand - Dollar
18.99
-0.2%
Rand - Pound
24.09
+0.1%
Rand - Euro
20.60
-0.0%
Rand - Aus dollar
12.37
+0.4%
Rand - Yen
0.13
+0.5%
Platinum
904.45
+0.2%
Palladium
999.75
-0.6%
Gold
2,152.91
-0.4%
Silver
24.91
-0.5%
Brent Crude
86.89
+1.8%
Top 40
65,985
-0.4%
All Share
72,185
-0.3%
Resource 10
53,353
+0.1%
Industrial 25
99,500
-1.0%
Financial 15
16,667
+0.3%
All JSE data delayed by at least 15 minutes Iress logo
Company Snapshot
Editorial feedback and complaints

Contact the public editor with feedback for our journalists, complaints, queries or suggestions about articles on News24.

LEARN MORE
Government tenders

Find public sector tender opportunities in South Africa here.

Government tenders
This portal provides access to information on all tenders made by all public sector organisations in all spheres of government.
Browse tenders