Heads to roll over millions lost at registering authorities
Gauteng MEC for Roads and Transport, Ismail Vadi, today announced that a wide-ranging and extensive departmental investigation relating to financial irregularities at both municipal and provincial Motor Vehicle Registering Authorities (MVRA) has been concluded and that more government officials are to face disciplinary action and/or criminal charges in the coming weeks.
Vadi has, however, given the assurance that all efforts are being made to ensure that services to public at the MVRAs will not be entirely disrupted.
This follows the disciplinary action by the City of Johannesburg in which 71 employees have been suspended, some of whom arrested by the Hawks.
“The investigation shows a clear trend of syndicated crime that probably involves a further 394 officials from MVRAs in Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Sedibeng and West Rand, who could possibly be charged for 2791 fraudulent transactions. The total financial loss to government is estimated to be R42 million,” said Vadi.
He added that the actual number of employees allegedly involved in the scam is still to be verified with the municipalities concerned as ‘ghost workers’ could have been created on the technology platform to perpetrate fraudulent transactions.
Vadi revealed that the departmental investigations commenced in 2013, when it was discovered that “ghost users” were created on the eNatis system by two departmental employees for the purpose of defrauding the license fees fund. Both officials were charged and are no longer in the employ of the department.
Subsequently, the departmental investigation was broadened to include all MVRAs as it became apparent that more officials across the system were possibly involved in the scam.
Essentially, the eNatis system prevents the renewal of a motor vehicle licence if there are any outstanding licence fees or fines captured against the applicant’s identity number. The system will only perform the renewal transaction once the outstanding amount is paid.
Vadi indicated that the officials involved allegedly have removed the outstanding fees and ‘dumped’ the fees onto another vehicle owner’s name, who in most instances is a deceased person, or onto inactive vehicle records.
This allows for the renewal transaction to take place without the applicant paying the outstanding license fees and penalties. The officials perpetrating this scam would be bribed with an agreed percentage of the ‘dumped’ fee, resulting in a direct loss of government revenue.
Vadi said that the protracted investigations have revealed that this is an “elaborate, syndicated scam involving identified government employees, private individuals, transport companies, used car dealerships, vehicle registration companies, taxi operators and selected businesses”.
He announced that his department will be suspending and prosecuting 19 officials working at provincially-controlled MVRAs, namely, Kliptown (4 officials), Mabopane (10 officials) and Temba (5 officials) for the loss of R6.2 million involving 304 transactions. An additional employee implicated in the scam is deceased.
Vadi said that in addition to the disciplinary and criminal proceedings lodged against officials concerned, the department will be reinstating the “dumped amounts” onto the accounts of identified vehicle owners.
Criminal charges could possibly be instituted against the private individuals and businesses involved in the scam.
“This is a large-scale investigation involving almost all the motor vehicle registering authorities in the province. The suspension of and the disciplinary proceedings being instituted against so many employees over time will have a disruptive effect on the level of services to communities.
I wish to assure the public that we will work closely with municipal authorities to ensure continuity of services,” emphasised Vadi.
For more information, please contact:
Melitah Madiba
Cell: 073 644 9935
E-mail: Melitah.madiba@gauteng.gov.za
