Questions have been raised over whether the eNatis system - which processes transactions such as vehicle licensing and drivers’ licences and stores the data – may be heading for a computer-crashing stop.
The Constitutional Court recently ruled that the private company, Tasima, must hand over control of this electronic national administration traffic information system (eNatis) to the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC).
But the road transport and car manufacturing sectors have, for some time, expressed concerns about whether the corporation’s computer system can handle it. This fear has just been accentuated by the auditor-general, Kimi Makwetu, in a rather scathing report of the state of affairs at the department of transport (DoT).
The significance of this is that the RTMC is what is described as an “arms-length company” falling under the DoT. Added to that is the fact that, amongst other functions, vehicle registration and licensing; vehicle and roadworthiness testing; and testing and licensing of drivers are already performed on behalf of the RTMC by the DoT. It therefore has to be presumed that the same situation will apply to eNatis.
But Makwetu, in giving the department “a qualified audit with findings”, expressed the concern that it “lacked leadership when it came to enforcing sound financial management”.
Click here to read the full FTW story, and other stories from this week’s edition.
