Gauteng to scholar transport operators: comply or get off the road

By Johnathan Paoli

Gauteng Transport MEC Kedibone Diale-Tlabela has said that the provincial government stands ready to work with scholar transport operators “who genuinely want to regularise their operations”, but that compliance with safety and licensing laws is now non-negotiable.

Addressing hundreds of operators at a provincial stakeholder engagement meeting at Johannesburg City Hall on Sunday, she said the department’s priority remained the protection of children using the services.

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“The operators want to be compliant. As the department, our responsibility is to assist them and ensure they operate within the law, but we must meet each other halfway,” she said.

The meeting comes amid intensified scrutiny of scholar transport safety following the Vanderbijlpark crash on 19 January that killed 14 pupils.

Authorities have since launched province-wide enforcement operations to remove non-compliant vehicles from the roads, a campaign