Bay to fill court posts in bid to collect R34m in unpaid traffic fines

THE Nelson Mandela Bay municipality will hire eight additional staff members to beef up its municipal courts in a bid to force motorists to cough up for unpaid traffic fines amounting to R34-million.

This comes as the municipality’s safety and security department is battling to get motorists to pay their fines.

Traffic services officials told the safety and security portfolio committee that the city was saddled with about 57 000 warrants of arrest to the value of R34-million.

Committee chairman John Best said more roadblocks would be held around the city and eight staff members would be hired to beef up the three municipal courts.

“It is clear that the citizens of this city are not paying their traffic fines – the amount of warrants of arrest outstanding is huge,” Best said.

“We identified eight posts that need to be filled in our municipal courts.

“We are going to fill those vacancies to capacitate the courts. We will also make sure we increase the number of roadblocks.”

However, ANC councillor Andile Mfunda said if the city’s system was flawed, motorists could sue the municipality.

“As the ANC, we are concerned about the accuracy of our system in issuing traffic fines. In [yesterday] paper, there is Pieter Swanepoel, who wants traffic fines to be squashed,” Mfunda said.

“If our system is wrong, I wish this guy can win this case.

“I want to know why are traffic fines issued from Western Cape? A company is getting money from this metro and it is not from our province.

“It is totally unacceptable. The mayor must address this . . . It is wrong to have a company from Cape Town collecting fines while people don’t have jobs in this city.”

But Best said the company had been hired more than a year ago under the ANC administration.

“The tender was awarded more than a year ago, before we took over . . . Let the court address the issue in the newspaper today because it is sub judice,” Best said.

ANC councillor Gamalihleli Maqula said: “It does not matter whether the service provider was appointed when Obama or Mandela were in charge. If the decision is wrong then it must be fixed. The leadership of this metro must deal with this.”