Tebogo Monama

Tebogo Monama

The Transport Department had thought that installing the new eNatis server nationwide and not on a trial basis would be a smooth operation.

But yesterday it fell just short of admitting that the chaos at licensing centres, since the launch of eNatis a month ago, meant it had made a mistake.

Spokesman Collen Msibi said there were plans to initially introduce eNatis at a few stations.

"There was a consideration to implement a pilot study in some provinces, but our supplier was confident that they would be able to implement the system without any problems."

Msibi said the problems with eNatis had now been solved and by yesterday it was up and running.

"The system is fully functional, but there will still be isolated technical errors," Msibi said.

eNatis was introduced to help people pay and book for their licences online and allow people to use ATMs to pay traffic fines and to renew vehicle licences.

It was also meant to reduce corruption in the department.

But so far it has only caused problems. Yesterday there was commotion at the Randburg testing station. "They were shoving and pushing but the system is working well," Msibi said.

On Tuesday about 1000 motorists threatened to set fire to the Langlaagte licensing centre because the system was down.

Msibi said the problem was caused by malfunctioning Telkom phone lines.

"Telkom has fixed the lines and they have agreed to monitor the lines connected to eNatis," he said.

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