The Gauteng licensing system is riddled with bribery and corruption. The 2021 investigation was commissioned by the premier's office and presented by the MEC for transport, Jacob Mamabolo. The forensic report uncovers all the corruption and the ongoing fraud, which is a major concern.
He said 912 lifestyle audits were conducted on officials, leading 13 of them to dismal failure. He said the salaries of the 13 officials didn't match their lifestyle and pricey assets.
"The investigations focused on  officials who had multiple vehicles registered in their names, which were not financed by the bank, their credit commitments were also above their salaries.This revealed that some officials had multiple streams of income, they neglected to declare to their employer," said Mamabolo.

WORKERS HAVE FRONTS

He said some of the officials own driving schools and use their family members as a front to run their businesses.                                                                                     "Based on the responses received and lack of supporting information such as bank statements, consideration may be given to approaching local law enforcement to assist in obtaining bank statements of the following officials to conduct a more detailed lifestyle audit exercise on the officials," said Mamabolo.                                        He added that 4912 fraudulent transactions in different testing centres around Gauteng were recorded, and were estimated to be valued at R39 million.
"We had been receiving complaints from the public about acts of corruption in the licensing department. They claimed officials and" runners" manipulate the online booking system for personal gain. This act  resulted in members of the public struggling to book appointments to renew their licences. People complained that slots were not available and they had to pay bribes to get appointments," explained Mamabolo.

EXTORTING MONEY FROM THE PUBLIC

Mamabolo said the introduction of the online booking system created new opportunities for "runners", who acted as the middle man to profit from the system.  
Mamabolo said that "runners" were also extorting money from the public through the sale of fraudulent eye certificates.
"They forge the certificates using a registered optometrist's details,  risking the lives of innocent people on the road."                                                                                    He said there were also no strict control measures to expose officials who take bribes from the public when they go for their driving tests.                                           "There are, in most cases, no CCTV cameras in place in both the yard and within the DLTCs, especially over the computerised learner's licence testing venue, which can at least be monitored by a party independent of the DLTC to flag potential irregularities," said Mamabolo.

INVOLVING LAW ENFORCEMENT 

He said from a total of 570,617 online bookings analysed, they  identified a total of 2,304 mobile numbers that were used to make more than five online bookings during the period and this was done by runners.                                                                                                                                                                                                                  "We extracted the top 25 numbers that were identified linked to the multiple bookings.We further found that the top 25 mobile numbers alone represent 13,158 of the 570,617 online bookings, with the top number being associated with 1,915 online bookings spread across 33 Gauteng centres," he said. Mamabolo said investigations will continue and he is in full support of law enforcement agencies assisting them to unravel more truths as well as ensure that officials are closely watched.