Transport Budget Debate

Hon. MEC, my focus is on how to make transport gender friendly and the Minority Front would like to see innovative programmes and projects for ‘Pink transport’ to make public transport safe for women and children.
In many countries, NGO’s are formed to train taxi and bus drivers to take care of women and children commuters. We must engage people in this sector, which can only have a positive impact on job creation and ensure KZN is a safe tourist destination.
Hon. MEC, thank you for fencing areas on the freeway to prevent grazing stock from causing accidents, improving the road drainage system and removing debris from our roads, timeously.
However, accidents are causing huge traffic backlogs on all major roads. We need separate lanes for trucks and abnormal carriers. Traffic jams cause many work related and road rage problems hence it is important to redesign our roads to circumvent these bottlenecks.
Ample parking spaces should be provided at reasonable intervals on the slow lane sides. The middle grassy patches between the freeways need to be used as switch over lanes on road points for both sides to allow traffic to continue, uninterrupted until accident sites are cleared. I can sketch these for officials if my explanation is not that pictorial.
Thanks to the department for electronic messaging; now we need more information signage’s especially in rural areas.
Hon. Speaker, South Africa is a unitary state and federalism may not be ANC policy but our borders need control from criminal elements, therefore we must iniate a border safety programme Hon. MEC, because drugs and violence is being imported.
Finally, Hon. MEC, does the department have an APP to communicate with commuters real-time. There should be investment in an APP to respond timeously to road-use issues.
The Minority Front supports this budget.
Thank you.