The Gauteng government must take immediate action to root out the corruption and inefficiency at its Driving Licence Testing Centres (DLTCs) where citizens can buy licences for R6 500 and have their arrear licensing fees cancelled and transferred to another motorist’s account.
This was the call by the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) in reaction to the release of a recent report investigating the centres which was commissioned by the Gauteng Premier’s Office.
Outa said in a statement that the report painted an “alarming” and disgraceful picture of the Gauteng driving licence system, particularly at the DLTCs.
It reveals that in Gauteng a person can buy a driving licence for R6 500 without bothering to do any test; officials will cancel your arrear licence fees by loading them onto someone else’s account, “runners” have infiltrated the online booking system to book up slots and sell these to motorists at R150 to R200 each, 13 officials have unexplained additional income and assets, and nobody is held to account.
“This is a disgrace. We demand immediate action against these miscreants and the immediate clean-up of the system. Motorists have repeatedly complained since the booking system was set up that they cannot get slots,” Outa said.
“We have always maintained that this is due to people on the inside taking up these slots and selling them to the public and driving schools. The system is also widely regarded as corrupt. Outa has previously raised these issues with government but they have not been addressed.”
The organisation said the report confirmed the “entrenched corruption” and the government’s lack of action to clean up the system.
“There are multiple levels of government, departments and entities involved, which limits intervention, enables corruption, and allows entities and departments to blame each other for system failures. The result is a chaotic system, open to abuse, and which does not serve the public,” Outa said.
The report assessed 570 617 bookings, and found that 2 304 mobile numbers had been used to make at least five bookings each, with the top 25 numbers used to make collectively 13 158 of those bookings. These bookings are attributed to runners who charge motorists R150 to R200 a booking. The report does not list the total number of bookings linked to these runners, but these figures indicate that Gauteng motorists paid millions of rand to the runners.
Outa’s director of accountability, Advocate Stefanie Fick, said the system was severely flawed.
“The system has many flaws which we believe are not difficult to overcome, and the online booking system merely shifted the corruption from the front office at the booking centres to the back office of the system administrators.”
Outa said it was particularly shocking that it was possible to buy a driving licence for R6 500 without needing to pass any test.
“How many such drivers are on our roads? How will these licences be identified? Vehicle testing centres were also found to be dysfunctional. How many unroadworthy vehicles are on our roads? Fake licences and unroadworthy vehicles contribute to road deaths. Those who enable this have blood on their hands.”
The report found that the systems for uploading eye tests, medical tests for public driving licences, and fingerprinting were open to abuse. The Driving Licence Card Account, responsible for the purchase and maintenance of these systems, paid about R23 million in 2021 for an external service provider to maintain these units, up from R16m just three years earlier.
“This report shows the shocking state of our driving licence system. In the light of this report, we are not surprised that South Africa has one of the highest road fatalities in the world,” said Fick.
Outa has called on the Gauteng Premier’s Office to ensure that the recommendations of this report are implemented, that gaps in legislation are plugged to block such activities, that the system is cleaned up as a matter of urgency, and that the full report is referred to the Hawks and the National Prosecuting Authority for action.
Sound clip
Listen to a sound clip with comment by Outa’s Advocate Stefanie Fick here.
