Drive Alive places the blame...

2003-01-05 19:39

Mariette Oosthuizen

Johannesburg - Drive Alive, a national road-safety awareness organisation, said on Sunday it was clear the government's multimillion-rand Arrive Alive campaign had failed and it blamed affirmative action for the fiasco.

Moira Winslow, head of Drive Alive, said a lot of expertise and experience had been lost when the government offered "irresistible" packages to skilled staff in all state departments in 1994 and 1995 and allowed them to leave without training their successors.

She said the government could not operate without a well-informed, experienced bureaucracy and one could not blame traffic officials for being incapable of performing tasks for which they had not been trained.

It seemed as if traffic officials were capable only of setting speed traps and not of monitoring the roadworthiness of vehicles, capability of drivers and other elements, she said.

However, this was no comfort to about 1 300 families who had lost loved ones in this time of so-called peace and goodwill, said Winslow.

'Lies and distortions'

Minister of Transport Dullah Omar reacted with indignation on Sunday after a front-page article in a Sunday paper alleged that he had admitted the Arrive Alive campaign had failed.

He denied this statement emphatically: "The lies and distortions in the report have done damage. We will report in detail on all aspects of the road-safety programme and the successes thereof in the next few weeks."

Although the minister was disappointed and worried about the high number of deaths on the roads, he said "the campaign played an important role and made a positive contribution - there is no talk of failure".

Arrive Alive is only one element of the strategy: Road to Safety 2001 to 2005.

After the first year, in November 2001, the project released a public report. It was an insult to the truth to call a five-year programme, which showed successes within its first year, a failure, said the minister.

- Beeld