Licensing centres have been hobbled by eNaTIS. The transport department is throwing more money at the new traffic management system, announcing this week that it will be forced to extend the completion deadline for the new electronic National Traffic Information System (eNaTIS) at an increased cost to the state.

Motorists will also have to shell out R30 per licensing transaction from July, which will go towards maintenance and upgrading costs. eNatis replaced the National Traffic Information System (NaTIS) in April. Its function is to register and license motor vehicles and manage applications for drivers’ and learners’ licences.

This is not the first time that the department has adjusted the timeframes or contract price for eNatis: the cost has risen from R311-million to R408-million since the start of this year, and start-up was delayed from 2004 to April this year.

One of the reasons for the delay is the failed court challenge to the award of the contract to technology consortium Tasima. The applicants in part queried Tasima’s strategy of abruptly implementing the new system without having the old system run concurrently for a short while.

Tasima admits that recent technical problems occurred because it could not fully test the new system nationally before shutting down the old one. Transport Minister Jeff Radebe this week threatened to sue Tasima if eNatis continued to malfunction. Radebe apologised to the public for the problems related to eNatis, adding that it will work better next week as staff put in extra hours and technicians are deployed around the country.

Motorists may receive clemency for late vehicle and licence registrations because of problems with eNatis, he said. Licensing centres closed on Monday in order to allow technicians to install a new server to boost the system’s capacity and on Tuesday the department asked the public to stay away to allow for further testing. Participants in the retail motor industry have estimated the cost of backlogs at R2-billion.

Critics of eNatis say that its improved capability over the old system has been exaggerated to justify its hefty price tag. The transport department had been using Natis since 1994. In 2001, Tasima won the contract to develop and maintain eNatis for a period of five years.

Tasima CEO Johan Vorster explained that the main difference is that the database and booking system are now centralised. Collen Msibi, the department’s spokesperson, emphasised the web-based capacity of the new system, which will allow for online registration and payment via automated teller machines.

However, online access is not yet an operational feature of the system. The transport department denies that the budget for the eNatis project has changed despite the final cost being R100-million higher than the initial contract award.

The Democratic Alliance reported that the project cost rose from R311-million to R386-million. Vorster explained that the initial price did not include 14% VAT and that contractual price adjustments were caused by foreign exchange fluctuations and inflation.

Msibi said that adding these three variables to the initial contract price raised the cost to R408-million. The department also failed to budget for the migration from Natis to eNatis and for decommissioning Natis, according to Radebe’s response to parliamentary questions last year, which described the tender specification as “erroneous” in this respect.

The department scrambled to find money by shifting R50,7-million from savings and under-expenditure and securing a R50-million treasury allocation. The department also paid nearly R1-million in interest on late payments to Tasima.