The South African motor manufacturing industry is facing a new risk of disruption to its production because of threats to reduce manufacturers' access to the electronic national transport information system.
Tasima, a private company managing eNatis on behalf of the transport department and the nine provinces, has threatened to temporarily terminate their access to eNatis.
This follows the refusal of the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA members and vehicle financiers to pay "exorbitant" new subscription and user charge fees for access to eNatis that were unilaterally introduced by Tasima from the beginning of October.
Johan van Zyl, the immediate past president of Naamsa, said if automakers were cut off from the eNatis system, they would not be able to register vehicles and would have to stop production.
Van Zyl stressed there was no justification for the subscription and user fees.
It was "ridiculous" a private company could threaten an industry, cut it off from the eNatis system and bring the industry to a standstill.
Van Zyl said manufacturers were the suppliers of the input data into eNatis used to register a vehicle and it was calculated that the R36 fee per transaction was sufficient to cover the cost of running the system.
"If we are users of the eNatis system, we should pay, but we can't see any reason why we must pay any fees for feeding the source data for the system," he said.
Automakers previously did not pay anything for providing this data. The new fees will cost a volume producer about R250 000 a month and banks even more.
David Powels, the president of Naamsa, said on Friday it had a problem with the decision taken by a private firm to increase the fees without any explanation or rationale and without any consultation.
Powels said the dramatic increase in costs to auto makers, dealers and banks could not be absorbed and would have to be passed on to consumers.
The industry therefore had to also protect the interests of consumers. Naamsa is seeking an urgent meeting with transport minister S'bu Ndebele.
Powels said: "We can't have a privately owned company issuing an edict and 'that's it' when tens of millions of rands are at stake."
Chris de Kock, executive head of sales and marketing at WesBank, said it was concerned about the new fees, adding the communication process to vehicle financiers had been "quite poor".
De Kock said the bank was not given any explanation of the fee, what it would be used for and how the new fees related to the amount currently collected by the department.
"We have written to Tasima and requested feedback but as yet have not received a reply."
De Kock said the SA Risk Information Centre was dealing with this issue on behalf of all vehicle financiers.
In a letter sent to a vehicle manufacturer, Tasima chief executive Tebogo Mphuti said in a bid to curb misuse and abuse of the system, all third-party users apart from the department and its agencies would now have to apply and subscribe for access at a fee.
Zakhele Thwala, the deputy director-general of transport regulation, said in a letter to Naamsa it was not the government's intention to make money out of usage of the eNatis system.
The main objective of introducing the industry subscription system was to "clean the eNatis and control usage/access to identify all users, their functions, service level agreements (if any) and charge the subscription fee and user charges accordingly".
Department spokesman Sam Monareng said the charging of fees for certain third-party users was discussed with the contractor but this matter was still being considered, would be discussed further and no finality had therefore been reached on the issue. - Business Report