{"id":475824,"date":"2021-03-15T12:09:07","date_gmt":"2021-03-15T10:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=475824"},"modified":"2021-03-15T12:09:07","modified_gmt":"2021-03-15T10:09:07","slug":"calls-for-stricter-rules-when-transporting-people-on-bakkies-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/475824\/calls-for-stricter-rules-when-transporting-people-on-bakkies-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Calls for stricter rules when transporting people on bakkies in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Western Cape&#8217;s Agriculture MEC Ivan Meyer has called for stricter national regulations to be introduced around the transportation of workers on the back of open bakkies.<\/p>\n<p>Meyer said that the current regulations are not strict enough on the number of people to be loaded at the back of a bakkie or a truck.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No law determines the number of people to be loaded at the back of a bakkie or a truck. The only way to determine whether a truck is overloaded is by weighing it at the weighbridge.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Doing so is also a challenge as body weight differs from the goods load usually transported by heavy vehicles.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Meyer said that Transport minister Fikile Mbalula should amend the current <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ee.co.za\/article\/transporting-people-construction-vehicles-violates-regulations-2.html#:~:text=Regulation%20247%20of%20the%20National,which%20that%20person%20is%20seated%3B\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">regulation 247<\/a> <\/strong>of the national transport regulations.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Western Cape Minister of Transport and Public Works, Bongikosi Madikizela and I agree that the safe, dignified transport of agri-workers is a priority for the Western Cape Government.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For this reason, the Western Cape Department of Agriculture&#8217;s Technical Committee on Rural Safety will also be considering making agri-worker worker transport a focus area of its rural safety plan.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Meyer added that the Western Cape Provincial Parliament&#8217;s Standing Committee on Agriculture, Environmental Affairs and Planning is now\u00a0giving serious attention to agri-worker transport.<\/p>\n<p>The committee resolved to support Agri Western Cape and the Western Cape Department of Agriculture&#8217;s recommendation that employers arranging transport for agri-workers must ensure that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>No more than 50% of the licensed capacity of the vehicle or vessel is exceeded, and<\/li>\n<li>All directions regarding hygienic conditions and the limitation of exposure to persons with Covid-19 are adhered to by all concerned.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;The transporting of agri-workers on open trucks poses a significant threat to the safety of agri-workers,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/475728\/here-is-the-expected-petrol-price-for-april-2\/\">Here is the expected petrol price for April<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Western Cape&#8217;s Agriculture MEC Ivan Meyer has called for stricter national regulations to be introduced around the transportation of workers on the back of open bakkies.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":279935,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-475824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475824"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":475856,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475824\/revisions\/475856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}