Licensing centres hit by technical glitches

DOZENS of vehicle licensing centres across South Africa were hit by technical glitches which threw the electronic national administration traffic information system [eNatis] into turmoil.

The Road Traffic Management System has been dogged by controversy, with Telkom threatening to disconnect the system by yesterday because of a failure to pay R8-million for data services.

Yesterday, 39 licensing centres across the country were brought down by a series of computer technical glitches.

The problems, which also affected the Post Office, left motorists and car manufacturers frustrated and caused endless queues as they battled to register and license vehicles and obtain driver licences.

The issue, which affected licensing centres in Gauteng, Limpopo, North West and Mpumalanga, is believed to have been caused by the RTMC’s operating company, Tasima’s, failure to respond to a series of technical problems.

The RTMC and Tasima are locked in a court battle over the operation of the system, with the Constitutional Court ruling in November that an extension of the contract to Tasima was illegal.

The court ordered Tasima to hand over the system to RTMC, but this has not happened.

Yesterday morning, RTMC chief executive Makhosini Msibi said that Tasima had confirmed a partial payment of the R8-million owed to Telkom and promised that there would be no disruptions to the system.

But, despite Msibi’s attempts to allay the public’s fears, the system still crashed.

RTMC spokesman Simon Zwane confirmed that eNatis sites were experiencing problems.

“We have received reports that a number of sites were not functioning properly,” he said.

“Some were completely off-line. Hundreds of people were unable to complete their transactions.”

Tasima’s chief executive failed to respond to questions on the glitches, which saw criminals capitalising on the system failure.

At the Florida licensing centre Ronny Moodley was swindled out of more than R4 000 when he was promised help with the renewal of his driver’s licence.

“They wanted R450 and promised to bring out the documentation so I could attach my fingerprints, before disappearing into the centre.

“I then received a call on my cellphone from somebody purporting to be calling from inside the centre, saying that my documents had been processed but I had traffic fines blocking my licence.

“He then asked me to give one of the guys R3 500 to clear the fines.”

Moodley complied and that was the last time he saw the person.