Traffic officers writing out fines and summonses incorrectly, poor administration and corruption cost the Cape Town traffic department R50 million in uncollected traffic fines in the past four years.
Traffic officers writing out fines and summonses incorrectly, poor administration and corruption cost the Cape Town traffic department R50 million in uncollected traffic fines in the past four years.
The reported that an auditors report commissioned by the city bosses highlighted the problems that led to the loss of fines that were not recovered.
The PriceWaterhouseCoopers auditors’ report stated that from June 2000 to July 2002 the department was not able to locate motorists who had 194 000 fines totalling about R30 million. The number of motorists with unpaid fines increased by 7 000 in the financial year 2001 to 2002 compared with the previous year.
The report said that the department was not able to trace many offenders. Unicity spokesman Charles Cooper told the Cape Argus that the department dealt with 30 000 new summonses every month and at least 10 000 could not be processed.
“Those cases were tagged untraceable only as a sort of holding area where cases could lie before being re-introduced into the system,” he said.
The audit also stated that there was a lack of control, poor administration and loopholes in the system that allowed for “fraudulent activities”.