Aarto deadline an April Fool’s joke?

The latest official launch

date for the Administrative

Adjudication of Road Traffic

Offences Act (Aarto) is

April 1, 2016, according to

Gavin Kelly, technical and

operations manager of the

Road Freight Association

(RFA).

Not that it can be

considered a definite fixed

date, because it’s now over 17

years since the road demerit

scheme was first approved,

seven years since it was rolled

out as a pilot project, and only

one of a number of other kickoff

times.

As far back as 2013, for

example, FTW warned that

the 2014 deadline for rollout

and implementation of the

new Aarto Act was unlikely

to be met. The same warning

should be applied to 2016.

Another current area of

doubt is whether all the issues

that have concerned the

trucking industry have been

satisfactorily resolved, Kelly

told FTW.

While the Road Traffic

Management Corporation

(RTMC), the rather doubtful

entity in charge of Aarto, may

have confirmed that new start

date, it has revealed none of

the answers to the concerns

expressed by the RFA.

And the reason for concern

about the RTMC is that it

doesn’t have a good track

record, and at least once was

reported to be “technically

insolvent”. According to

information released to FTW

by Kevin Martin, MD of

Freightliner, some 18 months

ago the former RTMC board

was found by the new RTMC

board to have irregularly

spent R360m and used

up R17m on fruitless and

wasteful expenditure in 2010.

And transport minister Dipuo

Peters said that “a number of

irregularities and instances of

mismanagement of resources,

as well as maladministration

in the entity”, had been

discovered.

As far as its answers to

the road freight industry’s

concerns go, the core issues

relating to driver points,

vehicle points and access to

information have definitely

not been satisfactorily

resolved, according to Kelly.

He also pointed out

that Aarto had to rely on a

thorough data base.

“But I don’t know if

they’ve resolved the software

capability problem –

especially the necessary

interconnectivity between

all the municipalities and the

electronic National Traffic

Information System (eNaTIS)

– that has beleaguered them

from the beginning.”

The main problem is the

credibility of the e-NaTIS

data base on which RTMC

relies for vital vehicle owner

identification for Aarto.

Kelly said it suffered from

various weaknesses, especially

this licensing data from

provincial and metropolitan

municipalities. And now that

the RTMC needs real-time

access to the data for Aarto, it

further accentuates the need

for credibility.

“But have they resolved this

problem? I don’t know,” said

Kelly.

Nor has he received

any information on

other issues, like how

they intend to deal with

labour employment.

“They were supposed to

talk to the unions about

this,” Kelly said. “But they

haven’t as far as I know.”

There’s also still

the question of

the actual legality of Aarto.

But again, whether this has

been resolved still remains

a mystery. As is whether

they have resolved the

penalty levels

that will be

applied at

magisterial

level.

“On all the

issues, nobody

knows where

they are right

now,” said

Kelly.

INSERT & CAPTION

The core issues

relating to driver

points, vehicle

points and access

to information

have definitely not

been satisfactorily

resolved.

– Gavin Kelly