SOUTH Africa?s drivers? licence system is to be scrapped in favour of a fully computerised ?corruption proof? process after government admitted it was unable to root out systematic abuse in several provinces, where licences are sold to applicants who have never driven vehicles.
Transport minister Dullar Omar has already approved the new system, and will apply for special funding from cabinet within the next month.
Corruption is particularly endemic in Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Northern Province, where applicants aren’t even required to undergo testing, and instead simply send in mail-orders for fake licences from as far as the Western Cape and the Free State for as little as R800 each.
National Traffic Inspectorate manager Lisa Mangcu said government did not believe it would ever be able to weed out all corrupt traffic officers and was therefore instead switching to a computerised licence issuing system which would ?make it impossible for officers to fudge the books?.
Earlier investigations in Mpumalanga found that some corrupt officers issued up to 300 licences during an eight-hour workday, leaving officers less than two minutes per applicant.
Government is to simultaneously begin educating often ignorant licence applicants who fail realise that the ?guaranteed licences? they paid for are illegal and a danger to legitimate drivers.
Corrupt driving schools recruit applicants by promising guaranteed licences within a week, regardless of whether applicants have ever driven a vehicle or not. Undercover reporters who applied for a licence were scalped of over R1 500 more than the advertised rate, were only allowed to practice their driving for four minutes on one occasion in a wrecked truck but were issued their licence despite being unable to drive at all.
The inspectorate is currently spearheading legislation that will prevent people from travelling thousands of kilometres to apply for licences in distant provinces.
Parliamentary deputy speaker Baleka Mbete-Kgositsile is South Africa’s most famous recipient of a fraudulent licence after she flew to Mpumalanga in 1995 to secretly get a learners and drivers licence within minutes of each other in the small farm town of Delmas.
The licences were ruled illegal and revoked, but none of those implicated in the scandal were fired or criminally charged.
The traffic officer who blew the whistle on the scam, John Muller, was hounded out of his job and has been unable to find work at any other traffic departments nationwide. – African Eye News Service