Evidently our traffic lights are not operational due to vandalism, this obligates traffic officers to be the ones ensuring a smooth flow of traffic, especially during peak hours in the CBD.
Roads leading to Welkom CBD from Riebeeckstad, Virginia and Odendaalsrus between 07:00 and 08:00 require constant monitoring by traffic officers.
It is quite disturbing to note that when traffic officers are needed to manage traffic flow, they’re nowhere to be found, but when there is a funeral of a well-known person they suddenly appear in great numbers.
This makes you wonder whether they are employed to ensure the safe and free flow of traffic to prevent road accidents and deaths on our roads, or to dignify funerals.
There seems to be a gap there. It would be interesting to know how much revenue our municipality is deriving from controlling funeral processions compared to enforcing by-laws and issuing traffic fines.
One of the notifiable weaknesses is the reluctance by the traffic department to utilize traffic fines as a scope for revenue boost.
We wouldn’t be sitting with unfunded budgets if they capitalized on this. In the past, traffic officers were even working at night, but not anymore.
That’s when accidents happen and taxi pirates without permits drive. This should be relooked at.
The problem is lack of clear priorities from the traffic department management and a total deviation from their core duties, namely, traffic control and not funerals.
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