The signing of the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Amendment Bill into law will assist the country to curb the high number of road fatalities on the country’s road, says Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula.
“We are burying far too many people as a result of crashes. In 2018 alone, 12 921 people lost their lives in road collisions in South Africa.
“Each death represented an average loss of R4.6 million to the economy, in terms of lost productivity, pain and suffering as well as legal and funeral costs,” the Minister said.
He was on Sunday addressing members of the media at the N1 North Carousel Plaza at Maubane off-ramp on the Aarto Act and its implementation.
Various representatives of labour, business and community organisations developed the Amendment Bill in 2013 and spent almost two years at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac), incorporating comments and input.
Cabinet approved it in 2015, tabled in Parliament in November 2015 and thereafter the Portfolio Committee on Transport engaged upon it.
South Africans were invited to comment on the bill on three separate occasions. The bill was then approved by the National Assembly in 2017 and thereafter submitted to the National Council of Provinces (NCoP).
The NCoP deliberated on the bill and submitted it to the nine Provincial Legislatures, which then cascaded it further by engaging members of the public in various districts through public hearings from 2017 until 2018.
