An Eastern Cape traffic officer seized seven state vehicles that were apparently being misused by civil servants at the weekend, the Dispatch Online reported on Monday.
It said this happened in less than three hours on East London’s N2 on Sunday afternoon.
Traffic officer Walter Martin started his blitz to stop state vehicles from being abused shortly after 1pm. Some of the vehicles he confiscated were out of their jurisdiction and others had no valid authorisation for trips.
A Dispatch team arrived at the scene just in time to see a seventh vehicle, from the agriculture department, confiscated because the passenger was without an identity document.
Both the driver and the passenger tried to produce documentation to prove that he was a legitimate departmental employee, but nothing materialised. Martin’s response was: ”If you do not have an ID document, I must take the vehicle.”
Six other vehicles were already parked alongside the N2. Four belonged to the justice department and one to education, and a sixth had no identification stickers on its front doors.
”These government vehicles are picking people up along the road and the [drivers] make them pay,” said Martin. — Sapa