statement
20 May 2007
Johannesburg: The Ministry of Transport is highly disturbed by an impression
being created that Minister Radebe runs a one man show in the Health and
Transport portfolios. It must be noted that the Minister has highly skilled and
capable management and staff members in both these portfolios supporting him in
managing and implementing government projects.
eNatis challenge resolved
Is it the DA's expectation for the Minister to now leave his duties and
become the Project Manager of eNatis? The Minister is not an Information
Technology (IT) engineer or specialist, but has appointed a service provider to
develop and implement this system and has highly skilled officials to manage
this particular contract, through his guidance.
We believe that the eNATIS Service Provider working closely with the
Department of Transport (DoT) was able to diagnose the server-capacity
challenge in dealing particularly with the registration of vehicles in the
system, and subsequently made huge interventions to resolve this problem. Our
staff members are now working extended hours to ensure the reduction of the
backlog. Just this weekend, we've been able to perform more than 200 000
transactions on the system. This intervention will go a long way in reducing
long queues that have existed for the past 14 years on the NATIS system.
Auditor-General's report
We have also noted the news reports regarding the Auditor-General's report.
One would expect the Minister to be the first person to be informed of such a
report, but it appears in this instance he is the last. It is however incorrect
to assume that the existence of the report meant that the Minister had already
seen it and deliberately ignored its recommendations. We would like to
reiterate that the Minister had not been informed of the report and have since
requested a copy for the Minister's attention. We would assume that the
Minister will be given an opportunity to study it and comment, without being
judged.
Enquiries:
Collen Msibi
Ministry of Transport
Cell: 082 414 5279
Issued by: Department of Transport
20 May 2007
Source: Department of Transport (http://www.transport.gov.za)
