No clear answers in licensing saga

MBOMBELA – Members of the public who visited the Mbombela licensing department, and the satellite office in Riverside, last week were left frustrated as both offices were closed and they were unable to renew their vehicle licences. Signs on the office doors cited the eNaTIS system as the reason for being “offline”.

At the testing-grounds office, a sign on the security gate encouraged people to use alternative services in White River, Hazyview and Umjindi. Although the main Mbombela office is now open, the satellite office remains closed.

Lowvelder has it on good authority that the reason for the office closures is the municipality’s ongoing financial problems with payment to the provincial Department of Community Safety, Security and Liaison.

The eNaTIS system is used by licensing offices nationally, so if it were down in Mbombela, it would most likely be offline in other cities in the municipality and the province.

Lowvelder reported that the licensing offices in the City of Mbombela were also closed in July and November 2016, and in February and May. One woman said she was charged an R800 penalty for her licence having expired, even though she had been to the testing grounds office five or six times in May and June.

I asked how they can fine me when I tried to come and get it done on many an occasion? But I just had to pay it, because by that stage it had been expired for two or three weeks. There is really nothing you can do. If you don’t pay it, you just won’t get your licence,” she said.

What is the solution?
According to municipal spokesman, Joseph Ngala, the relevant stakeholders met on Monday morning in order to come up with a solution to solve the problem. He admitted it was an issue which needed to be sorted out urgently.

The acting municipal manager and acting chief financial officer for the City of Mbombela had a meeting with representatives from the provincial department (yesterday). We do not yet know the outcome of this meeting,” he said.

Spokesman for the department, Joseph Mabuza, confirmed that such a meeting had taken place, but was unable to respond to the paper’s questions at the time of going to press.

Previous licensing-office issues
Last July the department had run out of the paper needed to print licences on. Four months later the licensing offices in the municipality’s jurisdiction were closed due to a financial disagreement over payment procedures between the municipality and the department. This resulted in the offices running out of paper.

Also read: Municipality debt shuts down licensing offices

During the month of February members of the public were told that the computer systems were offline for two days, but the reason for closure was never confirmed by the municipality. It was a similar story in May.