Safety is a priority
over festive season
By Tabisa Mntengwana
22 December 2008
BUFFALO CITY wants everyone to have a safe and beautiful festive season, and has embarked on a number of initiatives, ranging from a traffic department Zero Tolerance campaign to a focus on illegal dumping and monitoring of beaches.
Various City departments are involved in the campaigns.
The illegal dumping campaign has been ongoing since July, with the aim of keeping Buffalo City clean and ensuring that everyone can enjoy its natural beauty. Called Trash Busters, it focuses on clearing illegal dump sites and holding awareness presentations on littering.
The influx of visitors over the festive season has also prompted the City “to reinforce our cleaning teams with over 200 personnel - armed with spades and brooms - to tackle the clearing of gutters in our streets”.
According to the municipal spokesperson, Samkelo Ngwenya, the clearing of illegally dumped waste is costly for the City. “It’s even more worrying when people illegally dump building and gardening rubble, despite the fact that we don’t charge for such waste.”
There are five legal dumping sites: the Stone Drift Garden Transfer Station in Amalinda; the Industrial Development Zone Garden Transfer Station in Westbank; the Second Creek General Waste Site in Parkside; the Beacon Bay Garden Transfer Site and the Round Hill General Waste Site in Berlin.
Safety
With safety in mind, the Zero Tolerance campaign kicked off in early November under the theme Operation Safer Festive Season. Traffic officers have been deployed around the city to discourage crime and petty offences.
According to Bernie Martins, the municipality’s traffic and law commander, the City is working with the South African Police Service “with the aim of having a safe and peaceful festive season”.
Officers are targeting various areas, namely overloading, vehicle and driver fitness, and drunken driving. “We aim to concentrate on unworthy vehicles and seriously look into drunken driving, which is the cause of many deaths in the country.”
Down at the beachfront, the traffic department is out and about with its annual beachfront traffic and pedestrian control operations. It is also undertaking a door to door campaign in Quigney, urging residents to register for vehicle access permits.
These permits are issued to Quigney residents only, Martins explains. In previous years, vehicle access permits were issued to motorists living outside Quigney, “but this year things will be different. We want to control traffic flow and concentrate more on pedestrians.”
The vehicle access permits will be valid from 31 December until 3 January 2009. “The closure will be executed in such a way that drivers will be allowed access to the area up to a certain extent,” Martins explains.
The department has also hired marshals to control parking from 15 December until 3 January 2009. The parking fee is R5 per vehicle and “motorists will be given a numbered BCM ticket as proof of payment”.
No go areas for vehicles include Gonubie, Bonza and Nahoon beach parking areas, from 31 December until 2 January 2009.
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