The Freedom Front Plus (VF Plus) notes with concern the Hessequa Municipality Traffic Department’s official performance target that is expressed in the monetary value of traffic fines.
According to the Municipality’s own key performance indicators (SDBIP), R4 million must be collected through fines every quarter.
This practice is unacceptable, because traffic law enforcement should be focused solely on ensuring road safety and protecting road users – not revenue generation.
Residents are increasingly complaining that traffic officers’ conduct is inappropriate; and the public feels that financial targets rather than safety seem to be the driving force behind such conduct.
When performance is linked to a monetary value, a conflict of interest arises: officers are indirectly encouraged to issue as many fines as possible, rather than prioritising the most serious offences.
This erodes public trust and turns traffic policing from a safety function into a revenue-generating function, which contravenes the objective of the National Road Traffic Act.
In the Freedom Front Plus’s view, no traffic officer or department should ever be pressured to collect a specified amount in traffic fines.
The Municipality needs to review this performance requirement at once and remove all financial collection targets from the Traffic Department’s key objectives.
Performance measures ought to be visibility, preventing accidents and improving public safety.
Hessequa residents deserve traffic law enforcement that is focused solely on ensuring safety, not a practice that regards motorists as a source of income.
