A licensing official from the Akasia vehicle licensing department is in hot water after she allegedly wrote a learner’s licence test on behalf of a candidate.
The 40-year-old woman from Nina Park was arrested on Friday by the Tshwane Metro Police for corruption after she was allegedly caught taking the computerised test for a 25-year-old male candidate from Winterveld who allegedly paid her to take the test for him.
According to the head of the licensing department, who did not want to be named because he is involved in the investigations, the man did not arrive to take the test but the woman, with whom he had allegedly previously arranged it, took the test under his name and ensured he passed.
According to the official, the going rate for examiners to take the test for a candidate was about R1 800.
The cost to write the test legitimately is R108 and an additional R60 to issue the certificate should the candidate pass the test.
After the woman wrote the test for him, the candidate arrived to pay the R60 for his learner driver’s licence but was arrested by the head of the department, who happened to do a random check in the class earlier and did not find him present for the test.
When he saw him paying for a learner driver’s licence he had not written the test for, he called the metro police and the man was arrested.
He later allegedly confessed to paying the woman to write the test and now faces charges of fraud.
Metro police spokesman Senior Superintendent Isaac Mahamba said examiners completed the test quickly, often in five to six minutes, because they knew all the answers.
According to Mahamba, it normally takes about an hour to complete 64 questions.
He said the scores were also very high, if not perfect, when examiners took the test.
“It is impossible for a layman to complete the test in such a short time,” he said.
According to Mahamba, not only examiners wrote the tests for candidates.
“Often third parties, who have studied all the questions, arrive on behalf of the candidate and take the test for them at a fee,” he said.
The head of department said the examiners were supposed to check that the candidates arriving for the test were indeed the people scheduled for the test by verifying their names, identity numbers and photograph on their IDs.
Before she was arrested, the woman had left her belongings in a luxury 4x4. Mahamba confirmed the woman was driving the vehicle but could not say whether it belonged to her.
This was the first arrest of its kind, but Mahamba is confident more arrests will follow.
It could not be confirmed whether the woman has been doing this for an extended period and the extent of the problem is yet to be established.
They continue to investigate the matter, which is believed to be a national problem.
Measures have been put in place to catch examiners and candidates involved in corrupt activities.
“We have a zero tolerance for corruption. We will make sure the guilty parties are arrested,” Mahamba said.
The official and the man are expected to appear in the Pretoria North Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
“This is a battle we must win,” Mahamba said. - Pretoria News