Pretoria - The Gauteng Department of Transport has promised to shake down corruption and discard traditional methods of working by bringing services to the people.
MEC for Public Transport and Roads Infrastructure, Jacob Mamabolo said that thanks to the pandemic, it was necessary for the department to find new and innovative ways of using the resources they had to continue bringing services to the people.
Speaking during an outreach campaign in Bronkhorstspruit at the weekend, Mamabolo said they were continuing with work to intensify the department’s smart mobility campaign which kicked off in February.
He said that through the campaign they were able to respond to critical areas which included improving the state of roads and driving the government's vaccination programme.
So far he said the department had visited all municipalities in the province and would be ending the campaign in Tshwane at the end of Transport Month in October.
Mamabolo said they were also pushing ahead with the pop-up vaccinations at taxi ranks across the province as it had yielded great success since it was initiated.
Mamabolo said they had now included a third programme called a “Request-a-slot”, which enabled motorists to request a slot either through an app or email, to renew their expired driving licences.
Through the app, which will be up and running on Friday, motorists will be able to be allocated spots as Mamabolo said they were aware of the challenges that existed with Driving Licence Testing Centres.
Taking heed of the criminal element continually plaguing his department, Mamabolo added that they had for the first time appointed a forensic investigation company to look at allegations of corruption and syndicates of officials working with crooks to sell and manipulate slots.
The team, according to the MEC, has been on the ground since July, and would hopefully be done with eradicating corruption within six months.
“We’ve seen people preying on applicants who can’t get slots charging them huge amounts of money on the pretext they will get the slots. These allegations have been around a long time but never been investigated.”
Pretoria News