This week Sanral CEO, Nazir Alli, did the honourable thing and resigned his post. Whether he jumped or was pushed is obviously a matter for speculation and with his knowledge of the numerous contracts and sub-contracts that made up the e-tolling deal, it could well be that he will be asked to settle on a remote island somewhere with no extradition agreements with SA.
While all this has been going on, one has to wonder where our Minister of Transport, S'bu Ndebele, has been hiding. In recent weeks he has steadfastly refused to comment on any of the major issues of the moment.
However last week he popped up in New York to make a speech in front of the Commission for Global Road Safety: Policy and Donor Forum 2012. In his address he said: "The importance of including road safety as part of a new approach to sustainable transport cannot be over emphasised. Road safety must be part of the sustainable development agenda, recognising the impact of road traffic injuries on Development Goals. We therefore call upon the international community to ensure that road safety is part of the global development agenda."
I am astonished at the minister's call to the rest of the world to address road safety. Not so long ago the minister addressed delegates at the local launch of the Decade of Action for Road Safety, a global initiative that clearly indicates that the rest of the world already has road safety on its global development agenda. The minister is about two years too late and I suspect many in New York were scratching their heads wondering if the South African Minister of Transport had either missed the memo or was suffering some form of amnesia.
The very fact that he is calling on the rest of the world to address road safety issues when SA has one of the worst records of any other nation, also seems somewhat hypocritical. While the rest of the world is reducing its death and injury toll from road accidents, Africa is set to see road crashes become the biggest killer of children aged 5-14 by 2015.
It is not the rest of the world that needs to increase its focus on road safety, but SA and the African continent. The minister would do well to spend less time preaching to the converted and more time trying to fix his own problems.
Source: Business Day via I-Net Bridge
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