POPCRU believes nationalising SA’s traffic police will curb road deaths
The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union wants provisional traffic police departments to be reformed into a singular national department.
FILE: A car accident. Picture: © angurt/123rf.com
JOHANNESBURG - The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (POPCRU) says it believes nationalising South Africa’s traffic police will translate to curbing road deaths in the country.
The union has called for provincial traffic police departments to be scrapped and replaced with one national traffic police department.
The call came against the backdrop of what the union described as “severe organisational challenges”, which it said were “preventing traffic officers from taking a strategic, coordinated approach to policing our roads, and limiting their efficiency and impact”.
READ: 719 road fatalities across SA since 1 December, reveals Transport Dept
POPCRU also said the country’s traffic officers are suffering under poor working conditions.
“I think one of the things that led us to believe it should be nationalised is the fact that it’s fragmented,” said the union’s spokesperson Richard Mamabolo.
“For example, you consider what’s happening in the Western Cape, it falls under Housing. In other provinces, it’s under the Department of Public Works, whilst others are under Safety and Security.”
They maintained this would also help to mitigate the carnage on the country’s roads.
“We think due to the shortages of numbers, with this nationalisation it will actually ensure we have more capacity, and we have one single direction that we follow,” Mamabolo said.
“As things stand, we in the Western Cape, you cannot have police accounting to the Department of Housing because its specialty is around housing and not traffic issues.”