The Road Freight Association has described Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula’s calls for new regulations for the logistics sector as “baffling and alarming”.
Mbalula said at the weekend that further regulation of the sector was needed because trucks were responsible for noise, accidents, pollution and damage to road infrastructure. He said rising fuel costs and labour issues had led to transport businesses cutting corners on vehicle maintenance, overextending vehicle life and overloading.
Road Freight Association chairperson Gavin Kelly said on Tuesday that Mbalula’s suggestion that regulations relating to road freight transport were inadequate and required a revision was “incorrect”.
“The reality is that South Africa has one of the best transport legislative frameworks in the world. It is a combination of the best practices across the world. However, it is the implementation, the application, the monitoring and the role played by the authorities that have created the impression that there is insufficient regulation of the industry,” said Kelly. He said RFA members applied the Road Transport Quality System (RTQS), which incorporates international standards relating to safety and management of fleet operation, resulting in “world-class, or better, operations”.
“Those that call for ‘more regulation’ have been shown to be non-compliant with the most basic of regulatory requirements, like registration with the NBCRFLI (National Bargaining Council Road Freight and Logistics Industry) payment of minimum wages, adherence to transport regulations or even basic LRA (Labour Relations Act) requirements,” Kelly said.
“It is a harsh reality that the failure of the very same Department of Transport to ensure the efficient running of Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) has led to the position that now exists where almost all freight moves by road.”
Kelly said targeting the road freight transport sector to address the shortcomings of rail transport would increase operating costs that would be borne by the consumer. He said this would result in an artificially induced “correction” that would cause negative effects in the road freight logistics sector.
“The association calls on the minister to carefully consider the input by the association relating to the introduction of an ‘agency to regulate road freight transport’. The introduction of an ‘agency’ to apply the proposed actions to correct the deficiencies will effectively introduce another tax but, more importantly, (it) is a calculated move by an outside body to ‘capture’ the sector for self-gain.”
He said issuing of operator cards as well as activities relating to regulation, monitoring, enforcement and corrective prosecution were performed by local, metro, provincial and national traffic policing agencies.
“The proposed ‘agency’ will, again, increase the size of the government service at a time when government needs to cut spending, especially on the wage bill burden imposed on taxpayers. Recent reports in the media state that 13% of all employed individuals in South Africa work in government and earn 33% of all wages earned,” he said.
Kelly called on Mbalula to “listen to the advice, guidance and proposals” from the RFA.
“It is the recognised, compliant and capable industry representative organisation, whose members are bound through the Core Code to conform and comply with the various best practice and self-regulation standards that have proved to produce safer and more efficient road transport fleets and operations.”
