MBOMBELA – The Mbombela Local Municipality (MLM) is on a mission to increase law-enforcement visibility on the roads and recover the R39 million owed to it in traffic fines. Apart from policing the roads of the local municipal area, MLM made its intentions clear when it recently held a roadblock to clamp down on non-complying offenders.
Assisted by Total Client Service (TCS), the municipality is committed to recovering the millions owed to it through operations such as these.
According to TCS’s marketing manager, Ms Agnes van Rooyen, the fact that so many drivers managed to ignore paying fines was the reason road accidents, linked to reckless driving, remained high in the province.
“The roadblock was but one of the many of the city’s awareness campaigns to follow. Offenders who were caught, were informed of the status of their outstanding traffic fines and even though it was merely a road-safety education drive, many opted to pay their fines on the spot,” she said.
Mbombela executive mayor, Cllr Cathy Dlamini, welcomed the operation and said it would help to restore MLM’s reputation. She advised offenders to settle their outstanding fines or face the consequences.
“The municipality is gearing itself up to maximise the finalisation of offences, which is guaranteed to improve revenue collection for the city and also bring about public compliancy as far as road safety is concerned. It has become necessary to follow alternative methods to track and trace lawbreakers and convince them to settle their outstanding fines,” she said.
Through the combined efforts of the Mbombela Traffic Department and TCS at the roadblock, the municipality was able to trace many people.
According to Van Rooyen, within three hours, the system tracked down offenders with a total of 76 issued warrants of arrest with a total amounting to over R90 000. Of the total warrants issued, R31 500 was for contempt of court cases, which meant that this was monies due to the justice department.
