fraudsters
12 December 2007
More than 1 000 individuals and 70 officials have been arrested and 2 792
driver's licences cancelled during an ongoing joint operation by the national
Department of Transport and the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to combat
corruption in the issuing of driver's licences. The arrests were all linked to
the issuing of invalid driver's licences.
This has led to the department committing R20 million per annum, until 2011,
to root out corruption and to streamline system processes to prevent repetition
of corruption in the issuing of driver's licences. The SIU has so far audited
close to a million licence files and has identified more than 56 000 invalid
driver's licences and 2 792 licenses have already been cancelled.
The court proceedings are ongoing and to date 600 individuals and six
officials have been convicted and fined up to R9 000 and some sentenced to five
years imprisonment. The department's internal deterrent programme has also
yielded impressive results with 57 officials disciplined and 42 dismissed. The
key objective has been to identify and cancel invalid licences and also to
clamp down on corrupt individuals and officials who are participating in
fraudulent activities within Driving Licence Testing Centres (DLTCs).
To address control environment weaknesses within the DLTC, the department
and the SIU conducted an extensive review of DLTCs and have found 40 to be
non-compliant to minimum requirements. These centres are now being upgraded.
Some of the improvements include the implementation of document control
systems, training filing clerks to comply with the requirements of the National
Road Traffic Act and also repairing defective testing equipment.
The department strongly believes that these efforts will ensure that there
are fewer drivers on our roads with fraudulent licences, which in turn bolsters
road safety programmes such as Arrive Alive. The department commissioned the
SIU in February 2005 as part of its Anti-Corruption Strategy to eradicate
fraudulent practices at DLTCs and this has resulted in an impressive list of
successes.
Enquiries:
Collen Msibi
Cell: 082 414 5279
Issued by: Department of Transport
12 December 2007
Source: SAPA
