DA closer to winning the battle of declaring Gauteng Traffic Police an essential service to ensure 24-hour monitoring of Gauteng roads

10 March 2022

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng is closer to winning the battle of declaring the Gauteng Traffic Police an essential service to ensure 24-hour monitoring of Gauteng roads and the safety of road users.

This follows a public announcement by the Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula on the Road Traffic Management Corporation Twitter page which states the following “We must move with speed to finalise outstanding processes that will enable us to declare traffic policing a 24-hour, 7-day job. I appeal to those of you who have yet to conclude your respective processes to do so with speed.”

This is a step in the right direction as the lives of motorists are in danger because there is no monitoring of Gauteng roads at night as the Gauteng Traffic Police does not operate 24 hours a day.

For the longest time, the DA has consistently been demanding that the Gauteng Department of Community Safety must declare the Gauteng Traffic Police an essential service to ensure 24-hour monitoring of our roads.

The Gauteng MEC for Community Safety, Faith Mazibuko informed me through written replies to my questions tabled in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature (GPL) that there are ongoing discussions between organized labour, the Road Traffic Management Corporation and Provincial Traffic Management with regards to the issue.

Declaring Gauteng Traffic Police an essential service will benefit both the department and the Gauteng Traffic Police by reducing the excessive expenditure on overtime, improving working conditions and increasing benefits for the traffic police.

The DA believes that the discussions are at a critical stage hence Minister Mbalula has made the announcement and we are optimistic that the ongoing discussions will be finalized soon for the benefit of the traffic police and Gauteng road users.

This is critical if we want to reduce the number of hijackings that take place on our roads, particularly where spike strips are being used.

The safety of all road users is critical, and the DA will continue to put pressure on both the national and provincial governments to declare the Gauteng Traffic Police an essential service. We will also be writing to MEC Mazibuko to ascertain the progress regarding the ongoing discussions to ensure that it yields positive results.

Issued by Michael Shackleton, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Community Safety, 10 March 2022