Joburg cans camera fines
Johannesburg’s speed-trap camera system has collapsed. The number of fines issued has plummeted due to an intervention by the DA administration to clean up service providers’ contracts.
Joburg’s speed camera trapping system has collapsed. The number of fines issued has dropped dramatically in the past six months because of an intervention by the Democratic Alliance (DA) administration to clean up service provider contracts.
The City of Joburg failed to respond to detailed questions.
Four different and independent sources have, however, confirmed that around March the city cancelled contracts of five service providers that supplied systems to generate the fines.
Gerrie Gerneke, who retired from the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) two years ago, told Moneyweb that the department used to generate R30 million-R35 million a month from traffic fines. This was largely done through the 500 000 camera fines issued every month.
He believes the monthly income is now less than R3 million.
But Gerneke is more concerned about the fact that motorists can now speed with impunity. He says electronic enforcement on the scale previously done in Joburg is the best way of reducing vehicle accidents on the city’s freeways.
He says service providers including TMT Services, Syntell and MVS Phumelelo, have been providing a turnkey electronic law enforcement system for several years. This includes calibrated cameras, the vehicles used to place the cameras, uploading the data, providing computers, generating fines, delivering fines to the Post Office for service on the vehicle owners as well as postage.
The service providers were paid per prosecutable photo and that equated to about 40% of the collected revenue from such fines, he said. Some months they collectively earned up to R20 million from which they had to cover the cost of equipment and staff before taking profit, Gerneke says.
When he left the JMPD two years ago, the contracts were extended by a year and thereafter on a month-to-month basis, he said.
Gerneke and several other sources confirmed that the new DA administration cancelled the contracts around March. In terms of the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA), it is unlawful to repeatedly extend a contract without calling for competitive tenders again and the move was apparently aimed at cleaning out noncompliant contracts.
However, that left the city without cameras or systems to issue the usual volumes of fines.
Cornelia van Niekerk, owner of fines administrator Fines4U, said in the past she received more than 1 000 camera fines a month from the JMPD on behalf of her clients, 500 companies and 8 000 individuals. She has not received anything since March and no such fines are loaded onto the National Contravention Register, to which she has access.
Justice Project SA national chairperson Howard Dembovsky confirmed the issuing of speeding fines by camera had dried up since the beginning of March.
The city thereafter utilised a provision in the MFMA to “piggyback” on a tender awarded to Syntell by neighbouring Ekurhuleni. It is not clear exactly what the scope of the new contract with Syntell is, but Moneyweb understands it mainly provides for the “back office” and not for largescale camera enforcement.
Gerneke said other contracts that the city cancelled due to noncompliance include the provision of CCTV services, which is the nerve centre of the security system in the CBD, and contracts for the processing of accident statistics and the digitisation of licensing documentation.
About 190 people have lost their jobs as a result of the loss of the camera enforcement contract and 68 after the cancellation of the CCTV contract, he said.
“These systems are the backbone of law enforcement in the city,” says Gerneke. “Without them the whole system that was built up over years is imploding.”