The Department of Transport (DoT) has called for a speedy resolution to ongoing violence in the road transport industry.
According to Msondezi Futshane, acting deputy director-general for road transport at the DoT, information provided to the DoT indicates that South African trucking companies’ preference for employing foreign truck drivers at the expense of their South African counterparts is at the heart of the violence.
And while many in the industry believe there are more sinister political motives at play, freight companies have been urged to urgently enter into open, honest and robust discussions with truck driver representatives, the DoT, and the Cross-Border Road Transport Agency (C-BRTA) to find solutions.
“It is also alleged that the Department of Home Affairs, which is responsible for issuing work permits to foreigners wishing to work in South Africa, has not been regulating the issue of such permits as rigorously as they should, resulting in a flood of foreign nationals as truck drivers,” Futshane said at the recent Road Freight Association congress in the Western Cape.
He added that from their research there were several reasons why the industry was favouring foreign drivers, including the fact that many South African drivers refused to operate unroadworthy trucks. By employing foreigners rather than South Africans, Futshane said companies were trying to bypass the payment of cross-border driving allowances and avoid paying night-shift allowance.
Another reason he said was the assumed language dexterity of foreign drivers in comparison with their South African counterparts. “Other issues apparently raised by yourselves as representatives of the industry with regard to the employment of local truck drivers include allegations that locals do not want to do cross-border operations; that they are not sufficiently skilled as drivers; that they don’t know foreign languages; that South African drivers abandon the trucks in protest over low wages; and that drivers demand full-day pay rate even when they work fewer hours based on the contract.”
Futshane said these allegations needed to be opened for scrutiny and tested in a forum that was genuinely seeking to find solutions without any bias. “Understandably, SADC countries are concerned about the violence targeted at their citizens and are threatening to reciprocate by subjecting South African trucks to similar treatment, or to blocking borders leading into South Africa.”
Futshane said according to a recent SAPS report incidents involving attacks on trucks had been noted, especially on roads leading to, and from South Africa’s ports of entry – including both harbours and land border posts. “The identified roads on which these attacks have taken place are N11, N3 (KZN), N12, N4 (Mpumalanga) and N1 (Limpopo). According to this report, these incidents are a result of a combination of violent service delivery protests and incidents of labour unrest orchestrated by South African truck drivers,” he said, indicating that the National Crime Combating Forum (NCCF) had directed all affected provinces to intensify visible multidisciplinary law enforcement operations on all affected routes.
According to SAPS, national and provincial priority committees dealing with the stability of transport-related issues are monitoring the situation. “If the RFA is a body of South Africans, and factors in what is in the broader interests of the country, then surely we need to reflect on the grievances that have occasioned the violence currently being experienced on our major freight corridors,” said Futshane. “The long and short of it is that the employment of foreign drivers over local drivers is not just disregarding the labour laws of the country, but also creates unnecessary tension given the high unemployment rate in SA.”
According to Sharmini Naidoo, CEO of the RFA, politics more than anything else was at play in the ongoing displays of violence, but said the industry would happily engage in conversation with government on the issue.
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SADC countries are concerned about the violence and are threatening to reciprocate by subjecting SA trucks to similar treatment. – Msondezi Futshane
