Transport bodies fight over R507m in traffic fees

HALF-a-billion rand is at stake in a battle between the Department of Transport and one of its entities, the Road Management Traffic Corporation.

The amount is made up of traffic fines, licence renewals and testing fees.

Already the fight has cost the corporation’s acting CEO, Collins Letsoalo, his job.

Letsoalo has been recalled to the department where he is chief financial officer. The department said it needed him and wanted him back by Tuesday.

Letsoalo said the recall was a “shock” and that he was waiting for the “real reasons” because “things have been going so well at the RTMC”. He said his departure would leave the corporation leaderless.

At the heart of the dispute is the R507-million in eNatis (electronic national administration traffic information system) fees the corporation has collected since September 2012, which the department wants.

Letsoalo has refused to hand over the money.

Correspondence obtained by the Sunday Times shows that the department needs the money to pay Tasima, the service provider managing the eNatis system.

Tasima has gone to court to get its money and last month the High Court in Pretoria ordered the department to pay it immediately. The judge warned that the acting director-general of transport would be detained for 30 days if the service provider was not paid.

In a letter dated July 30 2013, Transport Minister Dipuo Peters informed Letsoalo that the department had spent more than R700-million on maintenance of the eNatis system and

Money has been collected through the eNatis system

wanted the road traffic entity to pay the R507-million in eNatis fees that it had collected since September 2012.

“The non-payment of transaction fees by the RTMC leaves the department of transport in a financial dilemma as it does not have a budget to cover the costs of operations and maintenance of the eNatis [system],” said the letter from Peters to Letsoalo.

“The RTMC is instructed to immediately pay transaction fees that it collected over to the Department of Transport and to provide [the department] with monthly schedules of fees collected and paid over,” Peters wrote.

Peters also informed Letsoalo in the letter that while the department was considering transferring the entire eNatis system to the RTMC, the entity should in the meantime transfer all fees collected through the system to the department.

Letsoalo told the Sunday Times that he and the executive of the corporation had refused to hand over eNatis money after seeking advice from the Financial and Fiscal Commission. The commission had advised them they were acting within the law.

“I can confirm there has been a tussle between the department and the RTMC as to who the money belongs to,” he said.