Transport minister denies dodging Satawu

Transport Minister Sibusiso Ndebele has denied that he had "dodged" South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) in engaging over the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (AARTO).

This comes after Satawu said on Wednesday that it had been trying for over a year to have "serious" engagement with Ndebele on AARTO.

Despite promises of meetings and commitments to dealing with AARTO-related issues raised by the union, the minister continued to "dodge" the union, Satawu said.

But Ndebele said this assertion was "devoid of the truth, and factual substance".

Satawu said it planned to launch a campaign to stop AARTO in its current form, warning that if necessary it will use its muscle to bring all passenger and freight road transport services to a halt.

In this "dodging" story, there is an undertone that seems to suggest that the minister does not take the unions seriously, as stakeholders in the transport sector, the transport department said in a statement.

"It has never been and will never be that the minister will do this," the minister said.

It will not be in the interest of road safety or our interest that we 'dodge' Satawu, the department said.

"What will we be intending to achieve? However, it should be clear that AARTO is necessary in South Africa to assist us to make roads safe," it said.

"For those who may not be aware; AARTO Act is a 1998 act, implying that it was at one stage a bill that went through a consultation process before being passed by parliament and then signed into an act by the President of the Republic of South Africa, 12 years ago," the department added.

Satawu, it said, has been well aware of this piece of legislation, what the objectives are and why it is necessary that it be introduced in South Africa.

Ndebele also denied that AARTO is a top-down punitive approach.

While Satawu has always welcomed any initiative to bring order and safety to the country's roads, AARTO represented a "top-down punitive approach", which has not been properly consulted, and which will impact negatively on South Africa's 791,000 professional drivers, it added.

AARTO, through the demerit points system, will penalise professional drivers for vehicle violations over which the driver has no control.

"For example, an unroadworthy or overloaded vehicle will invite negative points to the driver's record," Satawu said.

The number of negative points allocated before a driver's licence is suspended is ridiculously small, it said.

"Despite every good intention of not committing traffic violations, a worker whose job it is to drive, will be exposed in a very short space of time to licence suspension or cancellation," the union said.

"This is particularly in a context where traffic authorities have the habit of deliberately 'entrapping' drivers for reasons of earning revenue rather than for reasons of truly introducing road safety," it concluded.

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