CAMPAIGN AGAINST GOVERNMENT

The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport’s campaign against the abuse of government vehicles is paying dividends, Transport Minister, S’bu Ndebele has announced.

‘The Fraud Awareness campaign initiative launched during March 2002, was a resounding success with 111 government vehicles being impounded by the Road Traffic Inspectorate for contravening the policies and procedures regulating the use of official vehicles,’ says Minister Ndebele.

The initiative was launched with the distribution of pamphlets at various toll plazas across the province, alerting the public of the rules governing the use of official vehicles. This was followed by four blitzes conducted by the Road Traffic Inspectorate, supported by administrative staff from Provincial Motor Transport.

The most common reasons for vehicles being impounded were that officials were travelling on routes without the proper authority and vehicles were being used for private purposes.

‘One million Rand was saved in the past year by cracking down on the abuse of the provincial fleet,’ Minister Ndebele says.

Abuse of government vehicles can be classified as using the incorrect type of vehicle for a specific activity, bad driving habits resulting in excessive service and repair, using a vehicle without the relevant authority, using a vehicle for private purposes, the fraudulent use of petrol cards, and any contravention of the Road Traffic Act.

All officials utilising state-owned vehicles are required to be in possession of a trip authority. The trip authority states the details of the driver, the date of the journey, the start and end points of the journey, details of passengers to be transported and authorising signatures from the responsibility manager, supervisor and transport officer.

Disciplinary action will be taken against officials who are caught abusing government vehicles by their respective Departments. These actions may vary depending on the nature of the abuse but can result in the dismissal of perpetrators.

The public can assist the Department of Transport to eradicate abuse of government vehicles by reporting such abuse on the toll free hotline 0800 002 375.

The Department of Transport will continue with exercises to eradicate the abuse of government vehicles thereby saving the taxpayer’s money.

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