Licensing ‘horror show’ haunts motor industry

MOTOR dealerships are fighting tooth and nail on a daily basis to fast-track what they call a prolonged ‘horror show’ to secure licencing documents for customers at the City of uMhlathuze licencing department.

Under the revised National Traffic Information System (NaTIS), dealers are required to supply the department with customers’ certified ID documents, original proof of residence and original proof of a postal address by means of utility accounts.

Documents are then sent to Pietermaritzburg to get the final stamp of approval before dealers can finally send the finalised paperwork to banks to receive payment for vehicles sold.

A licencing process that used to be wrapped up within a day, now reportedly can take up to three weeks.

In that time, Provincial Motors Richards Bay Dealer Principal Pieter Alberts said dealerships had no choice but to make fruitless attempts to mollify furious customers, who cannot drive their newly bought vehicles without approved licencing, and impatient banks often want to reverse deals.

‘To say service at the department is poor is an understatement.

‘In one case, a truck was already approved in Pietermaritzburg on 4 June and we did not receive the document in Richards Bay until a month later.

‘A customer who bought a R1-million truck now has to hire a truck at extra cost while waiting for the licencing, which can cost R60 000 a week.

‘The result is, customers are understandably irritated and blame the dealership while the process causes further friction with banks.

‘We have communicated with other dealerships in this area and everyone concurs it is a major issue for our business.’

Tangawizi Motors Used Cars Sales Manager Steven Whittaker also voiced his concern with the system.

‘It is hard enough to do business in this day and age without suffering huge losses owing to a few pieces of paper.

‘Every day we lose money and keep paying interest until we have the licence documents to get paid by banks.

‘Then we still get slated on CSI (Customer Service Index), which no doubt results in millions of rands lost in rebate on cars nationwide.

‘Getting the licencing for vehicles are now more difficult than getting cars financed!’

National issue
uMhlathuze Municipality Communications Mananger Mdu Ncalane said the system has experienced technical glitches across the country.

‘We acknowledge the fact that the system has experienced technical glitches in the last few weeks and this is a national problem, not only isolated to the City of uMhlathuze’s licencing section.

‘The city has stretched itself to the limit in trying to assist customers who would ordinarily be going to provincial offices.’

He denied accusations of lack of management and competency within the department.

‘We have scenarios where customers, for some reasons, refuse to produce the valid proof of residential addresses necessary to retain registration numbers.

‘Customers must refrain from using abusive language when dealing with our staff who try to explain the requirements, which results in accusations of lack of good management.

‘This is not the case in any licencing section in the city.’

No more notifications
‘We would also like to remind motorists that vehicle licence expiry notices sent to customers was long ago phased out by the national department.

‘Some reasons cited are that vehicle owners and drivers use bogus addresses to register vehicles, resulting in traffic messages and fines not reaching drivers, and many criminal cases are left unresolved.’

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