All twelve transport state-owned entities were addressed by minister Dipuo Peters, accompanied by her deputy minister Sindisiwe Chikunga, in Pretoria at the beginning of June.

The meeting was the first one with entities since her’s and her deputy’s deployment back to the Transport Department, and was meant to re-affirm the entities’ commitment to their mandate.

In her speech, Minister Peters went on a drive to get these to adopt government’s 100 days programme and to immediately pronounce on tangible deliverables, raise their intake of youth participation in their programmes and ensure that young people with requisite skills in the workplace get opportunities to occupy senior management positions. She urged them to adopt the Rural Youth Service Corps.

She also urged those whose compliance with B-BBEE targets and requirements to shape up and make sure, come September this year, their verification status were in order.

Quoting from the President’s inaugural speech, the Minister referred to the entities as “…engines of development, complementing the State in promoting inclusive economic growth.

The adoption of the National Development Plan came into sharp focus with entities showing commitment to centre their strategic and annual performance plans within the NDP.

For entities whose Boards and CEOs terms are nearing an end soon, the Minister directed that planning to address the legal requirements process for bringing in new Boards and CEOs be started earlier rather later. This is to avoid late and long drawn processes that normally undermine delivery of services.

She made a strong call to all entities to show solidarity in their work when it comes to road safety. This would bring reduction in fatal crashes which in turn would bring huge savings on the country’s resources, that could be channelled to other areas of serious need. But most importantly, it would bring huge relief to human suffering and long-term emotional and psychological scars to affected families – she said.

For 2013/4 financial, all entities in the Transport Department received clean audits, she revealed. She commended them and called on them not to drop their guard.