Western Cape Transport MEC Robin Carlisle, Lead SA and citizens group South Africans against Drunk Driving, have urged Justice Minister Jeff Radebe to take urgent steps to reinstate the campaign to “Name and Shame” drunk drivers, of which the Cape Argus was a part of.
Publication of the names in the Cape Argus began in August 2010 and continued on a regular basis until October last year.
The list of names comprised most recently convicted drivers sentenced in Western Cape criminal courts, naming drivers whose names had been handed over to the provincial transport department for capture on the electronic eNatis database.
But late last year, the flow of names to the transport department dried up.
Carlisle has now written an urgent letter to Radebe, stating: “In November 2012, the courts in the Western Cape stopped sending in these records.
WHAT HAPPENED?
“After a series of meetings with representatives of your department in the Western Cape, including regional head, Mr Hishaam Mohamed, it has been established that this occurred as a result of an administrative change to Department of Justice processes, the purpose of which remains unclear, but which is claimed to be more legally compliant.”
Carlisle wrote that the gains achieved, by stigmatising drunk driving, were now under threat.
“The proliferation of businesses to get people home safely after drinking is just one indicator of how successful our push against drunk driving has been. Arrest patterns are another, and have shown how the Name and Shame campaign directly affected the volume of drunk driving in weeks in which the list appeared.
He urged Radebe to reverse the administrative change which had killed off the Name and Shame campaign.
Lead SA said the stopping of the Name and Shame campaign against convicted drunk drivers in the Western Cape came as a “shock”. -Cape Argus