40 000 dead South Africans rack up fines, so fraudsters can renew their drivers’ licences

The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has uncovered an ID scam in the department of transport, which saw the ID numbers of deceased citizens used to renew blocked licences.

According to SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago, motorists have been using accounts of deceased people to temporarily move their traffic fines, so they can renew their licences without paying for them.

“We were busy analysing the eNatis system and how it works. What happened is that when we were busy doing that, we saw that there was some scheme that was happening,” Kganyago told Newzroom Afrika.

Mostly done by truck owners whose accounts have been blocked after having amassed a lot of traffic fines, they allegedly collude with the traffic department officials and temporarily move those fines to a person who’s deceased and their accounts become cleared.

This allows the owners to renew their licences without having to pay the fines.

“That made the department to lose millions because people are not paying fines that they’re supposed to be paying. These people are able to renew their licences and move forward,” said Kganyago.

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The scheme is possible because when people die, the traffic department does not block or remove their accounts .

“When we saw that, we looked at some of the people who have been benefitting from this and we went to them and showed them they owed money. Some of them had to sign acknowledgements of that,” said Kganyago.

So far, the acknowledgements are to the value of R9.9 million.

“It is fraud, so we are dealing with referrals for prosecution and disciplinary for the officials, because the people from outside cannot do it without the help from officials.”

According to Kganyago, this scheme has probably been happening for years because no one was looking.

“Even when we picked it up, it was not something we were looking for, it’s because we were analysing the system itself. It was by chance that we saw this incidences because our investigators are equipped to see when things are not going well.”

The SIU is working with the department of home affairs to ensure that the accounts that are linked to the deceased people are blocked from the system.

“The department of transport has been given an instruction to deal with it that way and they’re in the process of finalising that all these accounts linked to IDs of deceased people are blocked, so that no activity can happen in that account.”