The South African Police (SAPS) recently arrested a 48-year-old Tanzanian citizen in Promise Land, Kuruman, for allegedly manufacturing and selling fraudulent vehicle license discs.
According to the police, it is alleged that the individual manufactured and sold fraudulent vehicle license discs.
He would give clients a printout of the same license disc with an extended expiration date which he “renewed” for an amount of R350.
The suspect appeared in court on Friday, 4 October 2024, charged with cyber fraud, alternatively fraud, alternatively forgery and uttering.
He was released on R500 bail with the condition of informing the investigating officer about his movements out of Kuruman at all times, with the case being postponed to 5 December 2024.
A big problem
Vehicle licence disc fraud is a massive problem in South Africa, with the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) currently being on a drive to recoup as much as R2.1 billion in lost licensing revenue across the Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, and Mpumalanga provinces.
Apart from costing the state billions, fraudulently licensed vehicles are major contributors to the carnage that plays out on the country’s roads every day.
Many of them do not adhere to regulations and neither get tested for roadworthiness before they venture out onto the streets. The result is that they cause accidents more frequently than other road users with many incidents being more severe than normal, too.
In the process, these cars also place a massive burden on the Road Accident Fund which is responsible for compensating victims of road accidents in South Africa, leading to delays in settling the cases of legitimate motorists.
RTMC CEO Makhosini Msibi vowed that the entity will leave no stone unturned in the fight against illegal vehicle licensing in the country.
He said the RTMC is not only targeting owners and operators of fraudulently licensed cars anymore, as the search has now expanded to also looking for their accomplices such as corrupt licensing officials and the so-called “runners” who do the footwork on behalf of the ring leaders.
“Those who are employed by the government as well as the municipalities in the registration authorities who have colluded with the owners of these vehicles will be pursued, apprehended, charged, and brought before the court,” said Msibi.
In similar historic cases, the moment these individuals caught wind that they were the subject of an investigation they resigned from their positions and disappeared from the public eye to protect their pensions, however, Msibi said that the RTMC won’t allow this to happen any longer.
“There are two processes. Once they are charged before court, they equally have to be charged departmentally, and we now know, because the moment they’re apprehended, most of them opt to resign,” said the spokesperson.
“Now we are beginning to focus on their pension fund so that even if they resign, the pension fund should not be paid.”
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