MONDAY, 5.30PM:
THE Moldenhauer commission of inquiry into irregularly issued drivers’ licences in Mpumalanga today heard that traffic officers accused of issuing as many as 300 fraudulent drivers’ licences a day at the Kabokweni testing station burnt down the centre in 1995 to destroy documentary evidence of their activities.
Mpumalanga chief traffic inspector Francois Coombs told the inquiry that four officials suspected of the arson and involvement in a fake licence syndicate were temporarily suspended, but later reinstated and promoted without any disciplinary action. Coombs, who headed an internal investigation into the syndicate’s activities, said after interviewing one of the four suspended officials on a Friday, he was told master licence books could only be retrieved from the testing centre’s safe the following Monday. However, when he arrived at the testing centre in the former KwaNadebele homeland, he found it had burnt down over the weekend.
Coombs said that despite handing over “iron clad” evidence and video recordings of licence corruption by the four officials to provincial traffic director Henry Brazer, one of the officials was made an assistant director shortly afterwards, while still suspended pending an investigation. Coombs also said that driving school staff in cohoots with the four had threatened to “cause trouble” for investiogators with safety and security MEC Steve Mabona.
Both Brazer and Mabona featured prominently in testimony to the commission last week, when a number of traffic officials accused them of irregularly organising and issuing both a learner’s and driver’s licence to parliamentary deputy speaker Baleka Mbete-Kgositsile.
Brazer is expected to testify before the commission on Wednesday, while John Muller, the traffic officer who first revealed possible irregularities in the issuing of Mbete-Kgositsile’s licences, will testify on Tuesday. Mabona will be the last witness to testify, some time next week.
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