eNATIS: WHEELS ARE FALLING OFF

The country’s national electronic traffic information system (eNatis) is on the brink of collapse after Telkom started cutting voice lines to the system this week and threatened to start cutting data lines on Monday.

The country’s national electronic traffic information system (eNatis) is on the brink of collapse after Telkom started cutting voice lines to the system this week and threatened to start cutting data lines on Monday.

The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) has accused systems developer Tasima of being the cause of the system’s imminent collapse, but Tasima said the RTMC and the transport department deliberately refused to pay Telkom to force them to immediately hand over the system.

RTMC yesterday asked the North Gauteng High Court for an urgent order forcing Tasima to immediately hand over the eNatis system and vacate the premises from which the system is operated.

RTCM also wants the court to imprison Tasima’s directors for being in contempt of a November 2016 Constitutional Court ruling that the extension of the contract, in terms of which Tasima has operated the eNatis system since 2010, was invalid and giving Tasima 30 days to hand over the system to RTMC.

Tasima, in turn, applied for an urgent order forcing the transport department and RTMC to pay Telkom for its services pending the outcome of further litigation about the handover period.

The applications were postponed to Thursday.

RTMC spokesperson Simon Zwane said the Constitutional Court order was clear and Tasima should already have handed over the system, but they didn’t “because they want to make money”.

Tasima claimed it needed 11 months to conduct the handover but RTCM had been ready since 2015 to take over and were willing to take over the people already running it, he added.

He said RTMC would only be able to pay Telkom once Tasima had handed over the system, as RTMC did not have a contract with Telkom and such payments would be irregular.

More than 80 sites were not working properly and there would be a “national crisis” affecting 12

Tasima should have handed over the system but didn’t because they want to make money.

million vehicles and over 11 million registered drivers if the system collapsed totally, he said.

Zwane warned that no licences could be renewed, no vehicles registered, no fines paid and the police would also not be able to check on the system if vehicles had been stolen once the data lines had been cut.

Tasima accused RTMC and the transport department of deliberately sabotaging the eNatis system and not paying Telkom to gain an advantage in their ongoing legal battles.

Simon Zwane Road Traffic Management Corporation spokesperson