Image: News24
Faizel Patel – 25/05/2021
The Road Freight Association (RFA) says following three years of violence, the main reason for the attacks in the trucking industry is the employment of foreign nationals.
The organisations CEO Gavin Kelly was speaking to Radio Islam on Tuesday about a proposal by Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula to an amendment to the National Road Traffic Regulations.
This will see a tightening of requirements for holding a professional driving permit, which is a requirement for drivers of South African heavy-duty vehicles in our country.
Kelly says more South African operators and transporters are employing foreign nationals to drive South African vehicles in the country.
“They are employing the foreigners because it is beneficial to them, cheaper, whatever the case may be in place of employing South African citizens. Then we can only try to ensure that certain things are put in place to ensure that the violence stops. One of those would be by ensuring that South African citizens are employed.”
Kelly says there is a lot of opportunistic criminality that happens in the trucking industry.
“It is just the foreign driver issue. You would’ve seen in the last couple of days in a number of parts in the country there have been protests or demonstrations let’s use that term because that’s what they start out as. A demonstration, a call for help or a call for to listen to the plight of the people and then a truck is stopped and in many cases looted and then burnt.”
Kelly says any legislation that is passed in not going to solve the trucking crisis unless it is implemented.
Listen to the interview with Gavin Kelly
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