Insufficient numbers in traffic police officers in the Northern Cape has been pointed out as one of the factors to the increased number of road fatalities this festive season. The Department of Transport has less than half of the required traffic officers to manage roads.
On Thursday, Transport Minister Blade Nzimande announced that the province had seen a 70% increase on road fatalities since the beginning of December.
Provincial Transport MEC Lebogang Motlhaping explains says his department has resorted to also using the provinces police for traffic management.
“A lot of our drivers are actually really reckless. You find drivers that are really impatient when they traveling from one point to the other. I think that it’s absolutely unacceptable. One of the unfortunate situations that we are faced with is that we don’t have enough work forces in terms of traffic officers. The ideal situation is to have more than 240 officers for the whole province, but (we) only have 96. That in itsself tells you where the problem might be,” explains Motlhaping.
