Durban — Parents who will be using the services of private transport providers have been urged to ensure that the drivers are licensed and their vehicles are roadworthy.
The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport in making this call said that its festive season plan would end when pupils returned to school because it wanted to maintain the mechanisms and checks in place.
KZN Parents Association chairperson Vee Gani echoed the department’s call to parents, but also went on to highlight sexual abuse.
“However you are sending your children to school, make sure it is with someone responsible, we have had issues in the past where private transporters were sexually molesting pupils.
“We appeal to parents that whoever you are sending your child to school with, you have their contact details and you know them.”
Department spokesperson Kwanele Ncalane strongly appealed to parents, saying they must take particular interest in the roadworthiness of cars and must see their children seated properly.
“The department has employed patrollers assisting pupils crossing, and focused as well on engineering interventions including sidewalks.
“We have also impressed on issues of signage for demarcated areas for pupils to cross.
“We also have new bridges that we are putting up. We have an agreement that we have signed with the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure as well as the SANDF where we are building steel bridges.
“In this financial year we are putting up 20 bridges where our priority is communities where schools are adjacent rivers”.
Speaking on their festive season operation, Ncalane said: “The focus is on illegal vehicles that are transporting learners to schools. We want to ensure and improve compliance and we want to penalise those who are not complying.
“Part of the interventions that we are making as a province is that we supported efforts to integrate those transporting learners privately under Santaco (the national taxi council). Learners must be transported with vehicles that are legal and with vehicles that are licensed.”
He said the broader plan was to eliminate the use of bakkies as well as unroadworthy vehicles.
“This is why part of our operational plan is to ensure that we work with them (Santaco) through operation Hlokomela to go out and identify those illegal vehicles on roads that will be transporting learners,” said Ncalane.
He said the department did understand and felt the plight of citizens when it came to areas where there was no proper public transport, and where children were transported by bakkies because of poor road infrastructure.
“Even though we know it’s illegal we are not going to say that we will not be enforcing, however they need to make sure that they transport these learners in a manner that is reasonable. Let’s not have children overloaded in the back of a bakkie.
“It’s illegal but we understand the challenges.”
Ncalane said that the department had also increased the number of pupils benefiting from its Learner Transport Subsidy Programme.
“From 59 000 we are now sitting at about 63 000.
“We are exploring means of getting more funding to increase the pool of learners who are benefiting from the programme.”
Daily News