Traffic licence scandal exposed

Three traffic officials are in trouble for “illegally” issuing learner’s licences, and licences without doing eye tests.

The details of how the Stutterheim traffic centre was a free-for-all between 2014-15, including issuing licences to “blind” drivers, are contained in a 23-page report which has been gathering dust since June.

The ANC in the region says this is one of the reports that resulted in the total collapse of the Amahlathi municipal council. “Those implicated in the scandal don’t want the reports tabled in council,” said regional secretary Teris Ntutu.

The report reveals that an official responsible for conducting eye tests would sign off an application when there was no evidence “he is [was] the person who actually conducted those tests”.

There were times that “he would occasionally be requested by his supervisors to exit the room during learners’ tests and they would then invigilate and mark the test sheets in his absence. He would then be required to sign off as examiner at the end”, forensic investigators found.

The report states that when investigators asked for records of the CCTV cameras recording operations at the testing station, including the cash desk, they discovered that the cameras had not been working for a year, and that “there was no backup recovery plan”.

Investigators found that the traffic centre sent two bogus municipal employees to train in Port Elizabeth. Authorisation for this was signed off by a bogus human resources manager and official.

Investigators found that the trainees, S Gxalo and B Falo, were not employees at Amahlathi, neither were L Sikhumba and JC Else, who authorised the letters for the two to go to the training in PE, as the corporate services manager and human resources officials at the municipality.

The report is the second report implicating a number of Amahlathi officials in gross irregularities.

A preliminary SIU report, authorised by President Cyril Ramaphosa, recommended that former municipal manager King Socikw be held responsible for payment of a R107m bill for a yellow fleet.

A third report, which Cogta MEC Fikile Xasa tabled on Monday, recommends the appointment of two directors be rescinded.

Ntutu said the instability at the municipality is caused largely by those implicated in some of the reports, which is why they do not want them tabled in council.

The reports have sparked a war of words between Ntutu and Xasa, with both ANC leaders accusing the other of protecting one faction against the other in the ANC caucus.

Xasa accused Ntutu of interfering with Amahlathi issues. “He is not even a councillor there. I have tabled the report which was on my table and I expect the council to implement its recommendations.

“The SIU was instituted by the Presidency, not Xasa. And the traffic report is new to me,” said Xasa on Tuesday.

But Ntutu said the ruling party would not allow Xasa to divide the council further by presenting one report to the council and not the other.

Ntutu said they now want Ramaphosa and Cogta minister Zweli Mkhize to intervene and instruct Xasa to also present the traffic scandal report as well as the SIU one.

“If he is serious about creating stability in that municipality, the MEC must not pick and choose.

“We are talking about a forensic investigation here which implicated traffic officials in serious irregularities.

“And those recommendations have to be discussed in council and effected equally,” said Ntutu.