Honourable House Chairperson
Our Minister Ms. Barbara Creecy
Honourable Members
Director-General, Adv. James Mlawu
Deputy Directors-General of the Department of Transport
Chairpersons and CEOs of the Entities reporting to the DOT

Ladies and gentlemen,

As the Department of Transport, our budget for this financial year, or at least what’s left of the financial year will certainly go a long way towards contributing to the resolution of some of the persistent challenges facing the transport sector.

Given the role of the transport sector as an enabler of economic growth and indeed the development of people, it thus remains imperative for us as the GNU to continue to commit ourselves to its continuous improvement.

We thus have our task well cut out as we come into this GNU Administration with these lingering challenges facing many South Africans. In tandem with this commitment, we will equally strengthen commitment to safety across the transport sector and thus across all modes of transport and our budget will continue to give road safety added attention given the dire state of road safety, the recent death of eleven children a serious indictment on us. 

On behalf of Minister Creecy and I, I convey our sincerest condolences to the bereaved families. Road safety remains particularly important given the statistics of crashes and fatalities still defining our road transport network with the daily average of 34 people killed and 157 seriously maimed and also given our commitment to the United Nations Decade of Action Road Safety target to reduce fatalities by 50% in 2030 from the 2010 baseline.

Some progress has however been made in the past ten (10) years, because from around 2014, the daily average was approximately 40 deaths and 184 serious injuries. In the past three (3) years road fatalities have come down from 12 554 to 11 883 in 2023. This is attributed to increasing visibility of traffic officers.

Irresponsible driver behaviour has been noted as the major contributor to road crashes, with distracted driving, drunken driving; over speeding; and non-compliance with the rules of the road playing a major role. Research has proven that changing road user behaviour is central to making our roads safer. 

In fact, statistics have indicated that up to 87 percent of all road fatalities in the country can be attributed to road user behaviour compelling us towards a programme of behaviour change across the road sector. Given our populous and expanding urban settlements, we will commit ourselves to fight pedestrian deaths which are the highest segment of victims in the country.

State of vehicles

Approximately 10% of vehicles registered in South Africa are not road worthy and the average age of these vehicles is 11 years which also contributes to the increased potential for crashes and fatalities. Furthermore, it has been estimated that around 40% of vehicles on our roads are not insured.

State of our roads

South Africa generally has a good road infrastructure and the country continues to invest and identify key road infrastructure maintenance and improvements required. The increase in population figures and economic movements have however resulted in depleted capacity and inadequately maintained road infrastructure.

Fraud and Corruption 

Driver License Testing Centres (DLTCs), Vehicle Testing Centres (VTCs), Registration Authorities (RA), and Law Enforcement Authorities (LEAs) are vulnerable to fraud and corruption by both officials and members of the public. A “cool drink” honourable members, is corruption; we are urging members of the public to acknowledge this as such.

These factors, amongst others contribute significantly to the saddening numbers of deaths. As the department curbs corruption and fraud, it is commendable that testing centres have introduced digital tests for Learner Licencing. More importantly is the continued search for corrupt officials and the arrest of 97 suspects this financial year by the National Traffic Anti-Corruption Unit
attest to the efforts.

These include driving license examiners who allegedly issue learner and driving licenses fraudulently, examiners of vehicle in privately owned vehicle testing centres who issue roadworthy certificates fraudulently, traffic officers who take bribes on the side of the road, administration clerks, runners (middlemen who facilitated fraudulent transactions) driving school instructors, driving license applicants and businesses owners who collude with official to have their licenses issued through corrupt.

The arrests were made in places such as Fochville and Orlando, Booysens, Meyerton, Roodepoort, Fairlands, Ivory Park, Briton, Pretoria Central Lenasia in Gauteng, King Williams Town in Eastern Cape. Newcastle, Glencoe in KwaZulu Natal. Westerburg and Mankwen in Limpopo. 

Vrede in the Free State. The cases are in court at various stages of prosecution. In addition to the RTMC’s stated actions taken against fraud and corruption, the solutions have also included the following changes and milestones amongst others that have been achieved just in the last 5 years:

In its quest to professionalise traffic law enforcement, the RTMC, has been able to revise the current qualification equivalent to a Matric, bringing it to a Diploma level to create a high calibre of officers and recruits trained for effective professional policing (enforcement) – a 21st century cadre as demanded by the National Development Plan. 

Overall action towards the reduction in road deaths has been guided by the National Road Safety Strategy (NRSS) 2016 -2030 to implement a coherent and integrated programme of action. The RTMC’s development of a new centre of excellence in traffic officer training at the Boekenhoutkloof College to improve the quality of training provided to the traffic officers will be supported in this financial year.

The RTMC embarked on a project to upgrade the Boekenhoutkloof College to the Centre of Excellence and followed an incremental process by splitting the process into phases based on resource availability whilst responding to the mandate of establishing a Centre of Excellence.

Online services

The Driver Licence Testing Centres, Vehicle Testing Stations and Registering Authority provide services for the licencing of drivers,
registration of vehicles and roadworthiness testing. The RTMC has now successfully introduced online and digital platforms to improve convenience and efficiency in customer service. 

We are however aware that some of the processes within centres remained manual and labourintensive. For ease of doing business with motor dealerships and financial institutions the online vehicle registration has also been introduced.

Introducing 24/7 shift system

Honourable Members, this Administration will speed up the resolution of all issues that have delayed the implementation of a 24-hour, seven-day a week and 365 days a year campaign visible traffic law enforcement across the country especially in highly accident-prone zones on our road network.

The Western Cape and the National Traffic Police remains the only authorities that implement 24/7 shift system. It is crucial that all province fast track their processes to obtain approval for the implementation of the shift system to ensure visibility of officers on the road daily and at all hours.

The DoT will monitor and ensure the introduction of the new shift system by the 31 March 2025 and continue to recruit and train personnel. Towards effective implementation of our road safety strategy and towards strengthening overall capacities of the RTMC we allocated R196, 991 million in 2024/25 and R204,264 million in 2025/26.

The Arrive Alive Campaign must step up its efforts throughout the year, not just during seasonal campaigns.

Road Accident Fund

Honourable Members, while we commit to prevent crashes and losses of life or limb, we also commit to ensuring effective and responsive postcrash assistance to those affected and these services are carried out by the Road Accident Fund. 

The Road Accident Fund, RAF, has been implementing the turnaround 2020–25 RAF strategy for the last four years as developed to address the RAF’s major challenges which included amongst others:

Increasing liability

Long settlement turnaround times for claims

Unsustainable Funding Model

Governance and Leadership Instability

Manual and Litigious Operating Model

Non-Compliant Claims Lodged

Fraud and Corruption Culture

The strategy has focused on reducing administrative costs, introducing efficiencies addressing the manual and litigious model, management and reduction of the Fund’s liability, digital transformation, prioritising claimants’ compensation, managing claims’ risk, reducing claims backlog, and expediting claims settlements.

The strategy’s interventions have resulted in the cumulative reduction of legal costs by 75%, and a cumulative legal cost savings of just over R23 billion in the three years of implementing the strategy. The introduction and implementation of RAF Medical Tariffs and treatment protocols has resulted in the reduction of medical costs from R3.6 billion in the 2019/20 financial year to R2.1 billion in the 2023/24 financial year.

Honorable Members, as you are aware, in both my past and recent experiences within this house, we have grappled with addressing accounting standards related to the Road Accident Fund (RAF). There has been ongoing dialogue between the agency, the Auditor General, Parliament and even the courts. 

At the Department of Transport, we firmly believe that the RAF Board must promptly find a resolution to this matter and not let it be an instruction by other government institutions to it. The necessary changes required at the RAF must be achieved through
legislative reforms and not through arbitrary changes in accounting standards.

House Chair, the RAF has now gone for three consecutive financial years without any fuel levy increases. We also emphasise that this is unprecedented, as the Fund was always granted fuel levy increases over the years In this regard, the long-term viability and sustainability of the RAF is dependent amongst others the reduction of road accidents. 

The pressures on the RAF will be relieved by, also, a concerted effort to deal with the high levels drinking and driving, drinking and jay-walking, road block corruption, driver licence corruption, vehicle roadworthiness corruption, and due compliance with road and traffic regulations. The impact of alcohol abuse of the transport eco-system is of an adverse and detrimental to the economy.

The strain and opportunity cost of the road carnage is of serious negative consequence on the economy through the loss of time and productivity for commuters, goods, logistics and services. In fact, the RAF has remained a key contributor to the implementation of the National Road Safety Strategy (NRSS) with its goal to reduce road crash fatalities and injuries by 50% in 2030.

The RAF has also ensured growth of social responsibility projects meant for inclusion of road accident victims and persons with disabilities. My mother who was a nurse often reminded us that prevention is better that cure; and therefore, the action steps presented today seek achieve this reality insofar road accidents are concerned.

In summary we are saying the road to rail, road to train commuting where possible and viable will assist reduce road accidents.
In the long-term transport coherent and integrated transport-centric spatial planning must take centre stage.

I join the Minister in her commitment to harnessing a healthy working relationship with the taxi industry. The GNU and the Ministry will ensure transport sector cooperation to ensure we can realize the mission and vision of ensuring that our transport
sector continues to serve as a cornerstone of development, growth, progress and prosperity for generations to come and that the transport environment builds lives and does not take lives.

Thank you.