The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality will only recruit one new traffic officer in the current financial year due to budget constraints.
The city hopes to have more money in the budget for the next financial year, from July 1, before recruiting more officers.
The one new recruit, who was previously employed in library services, increases the number of traffic officers to 92.
Traffic services director Warren Prins: “We don’t have the budget to train new recruits to become traffic officers, we need to have budget and advertise and complete the recruitment process,” Prins said.
Meanwhile, the municipality’s training college has started training 40 new traffic officers from the Buffalo City Metro, George Municipality and Mhlontlo Municipality.
Prins said the Eastern Cape Department of Transport will be responsible for the training costs for some of the municipalities.
“The college is a service provider for the municipalities in the Eastern Cape but also for other provinces as well.
“It depends which municipality is going to send people to which college and what is the availability. We receive people from all over the country because the college is currently a service provider for training,” Prins said.