DURBAN - OWED about R668 million in unpaid traffic fines, eThekwini Municipality is also losing out on millions of rand in revenue every year because of a legal battle involving the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the city and a service provider related to speed trapping.
For the current financial year alone, the city said it had lost R38m in respect of traffic fines-related revenue “as a result of the stoppage of the electronic enforcement contract under legal disputes”.
The tussle with the NPA, which has been going on for about four years, had resulted in speed enforcement not being conducted, according to a report to the municipal council.
Adding to the woes of dwindling traffic revenue, the city is faced with R668m in outstanding traffic fines.
The legal wrangle means that the city has been unable to catch speedsters and motorists driving through red traffic lights, effectively losing out on muchneeded revenue and risking the lives of road users.
The Mercury understands that authority can only be given by the NPA for the service provider to position its traffic monitoring equipment such as speed-prosecution cameras.
The matter arose when the NPA declined to give authority to the service provider due to alleged irregularities relating to the contract.
The fight spilt over into the courts, putting the brakes on the essential traffic prosecution service.
“In effect, there have been no fines or punishment with regards to offences caught on static cameras, including motorists who fail to stop at red traffic lights, those who flout the speed limit and the errant drivers who use lanes designated for public transport vehicles,” a reliable source said.
Other fines relating to parking violations, unroadworthy vehicles and drunk driving were not affected, she said.
Metro police spokesperson Parboo Sewpersad confirmed that the city was currently unable to enforce the specific traffic violations owing to the court challenge which halted the policing duty.
Sewpersad, however, said metro police were in the process of finalising an agreement with the provincial government in which the Road Traffic Inspectorate (RTI), whose cameras are not affected in the dispute, would “loan some of their equipment” for use by the metro police.
“We have approached the RTI, and are waiting for the memorandum of understanding to be signed so that we can use some of their equipment,” he said.
“The matter involving the NPA and a service provider is being dealt with in the high court. The city is involved, through our legal services, as a mediator in the matter,” said Sewparsad.
In relation to the unpaid traffic fines, he said various measures were in place to try to recoup the debt.
Those included contacting people by phone, visiting debtors’ homes to arrest errant motorists in cases where a warrant of arrest had been issued, and setting up roadblocks to catch those with a warrant of arrest in respect of unpaid fines, he said.
Warren Burne, a DA councillor on the city’s security committee, said there seemed to be no political will by the ANC-deployed leadership to resolve the matter.
“The municipality is no longer using speed-recording cameras because of the NPA challenge resulting from a previous court dispute the city lost. Despite the DA’s very best efforts to reinstate speed timing cameras, the ANC has failed to prioritise this,” he said.
In relation to collecting unpaid fines, Burne said the city had been considering serving summonses to debtors through a third party, but the process had been stifled when other interested parties challenged it.
The city did not seem to treat the matter as a priority, thus compromising much-needed revenue, he said.
The IFP’s executive committee member, Mdu Nkosi, said it was appalling that the municipality had not been conducting an essential duty of monitoring traffic violations when the majority of much smaller municipalities in the province had this service running smoothly.
“It really shows you the calibre of leadership that we have in eThekwini, people who are not serious about service delivery or taxpayers’ money. It is mindboggling that this matter has remained unsolved for such a long time,” said Nkosi.
The NPA had not responded to questions by the time of publication.
When The Mercury reported on the issue about two years ago, then KZN director of public prosecutions advocate Moipone Noko declined to divulge the details of what had led to the halting of the enforcement operations. She only said there were matters regarding compliance that needed to be addressed.
THE MERCURY