On Sunday, 23 December 2018, the South African Broadcasting Corporation spoke to Sindisiwe Chikunga, who is the Deputy Transport Minister.
She reported that the Transport Department was pulling out all the stops during the festive season in order to alleviate the usual rise in road fatalities and crashes that occur throughout this time period.
According to the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) ‘State of Road Safety Report’ for January to December 2017, fatal road accidents purportedly lessened by 2.0% since 2016 up until 2017.
Chikunga claims that, as a whole, road fatalities have increased in 2018 and stated that foreign nationals entering the country, allegedly without licences and passports, and with unroadworthy as well as overloaded vehicles may be a contributing factor to the supposed rise in road accidents.
However, she also claimed that South Africans are to blame, as they are not proud of their country, and also went on to claim that officials at the border thereby do not hesitate to allow illegal foreign nationals into the country,if they receive a bribe.
“And it cannot be that we will blame foreign nationals. It’s us who are allowing those things. They park, they walk, they pay, they go back and our South African officials, they then disappear to allow those cars that have paid a way out of South Africa or into South Africa [sic]…” she said.
Dayna Remus
d.remus@politicalanalysis.co.za
