 
CLAMPDOWN ON FRAUD AND ABUSE OF GOVERNMENT VEHICLESMedia briefing by KwaZulu-Natal Minister of Transport, Mr S’bu Ndebele 15 September 1998
Ladies and gentlemen of the media, welcome and thank you for attending this briefing this morning. A special welcome to Mr John Zikhali, Provincial Chairperson of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), Mr Themba Ngcamu, President of the Public Servants Movement (Pusemo), Mr Themba Nxumalo of the National Workers Union and Mr Magwaza Maphalala of National Education Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu). Gentlemen, thank you for attending this media briefing to throw your weight behind our initiative. The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport has a reputable, no-nonsense approach to transgressions of the law. Our iron-fisted approach to traffic offences is well known to drivers in and out of this province. We do not believe in scare tactics or tough-talk without action, and when a clamp down is introduced in whatever sector in transport, one can count on the fact that we will descend heavily on the offending group. Since 1994, we have adopted an extremely hard-line approach to fraud and corruption in the Department of Transport. Together with the SAPS Commercial Crime Unit, we have an ongoing investigation into corruption at Driver License Test Centres and through this investigation we have managed to expose entire syndicates involving driving schools and department officials. This has led to the arrest of driving schools operators and officials, as well as suspension from employment. Investigation into fraud and corruption in Provincial Motor Transport Abuse of government vehicles and mismanagement of the provincial vehicle fleet first came to light in November 1995. Clear cases of fraud in the repair and maintenance and repair of government vehicles led to the suspension of 49 garages by the state’s agent, First Auto. Officials and garage employees were arrested, some of the facing up to 80 counts of bribery and corruption. Since then, there has been an ongoing investigations into fraud and abuse of government vehicles. Independent consultants were appointed to investigate fraud and mismanagement in the Provincial Motor Transport (PMT) division. Establishment of an Interim Management Committee In August last year, stemming from the consultants’ reports, management of PMT was taken over by an Interim Management Committee (IMC). The IMC comprised senior officials of the department, members of existing management of PMT and consultants from Deloitte & Touche and P&M Plant Management . The brief of the IMC was to reduce vehicle-operating costs, train staff and manage the operation of the directorate. With the implementation of a new fleet management contract on 1 April 1998, all operational activities are now performed by First Auto. The role of the fleet management is now to monitor the service provider under the terms of this contract, to perform reviews on vehicle costs incurred by departments and to perform routine checks on exception reports to ensure that these are being addressed by user departments. Operations at government garages have also been streamlined to perform under proper business principles with special attention to service excellence and professionalism. Fraud discovered by IMC Management of PMT under the Interim Committee resulted in proper control and checking mechanisms being introduced. This has resulted in widespread fraud and misconduct being exposed within the department and externally. Twenty-seven officials have been charged with misconduct where irregularities in their activities were identified. Of these 14 employees have been suspended pending the outcome of their hearings. These cases are being dealt with by the Labour Relations section and two hearings have already been concluded. Recommendations have now been made to the Director-General of KwaZulu-Natal for termination of services of the officials. The services of two other officials who absconded have also been terminated. All other cases are scheduled to be completed by the end of November 1998. We have negotiated with First Auto to implement procedures to identify possible fraudulent transactions more timeously. "Early warning reports" are now being generated and sent directly to the department to stop fraudulent transactions as soon as they are discovered. In addition, monthly data is being sent electronically to the IMC who have specialised software to interrogate the files and produce information to assist the police and investigators. The IMC initiated several investigations into merchant fraud. Fourteen merchants were suspended by First Auto in November 1997 based on the outcome of their investigations. The Heath Commission In January 1998, we approached the Heath Commission to investigate the operations of merchants and officials, as well as the process of approval for repairs to government vehicles. While compiling an asset register of the government fleet, our consultants discovered a large number of vehicles on the properties of merchants. These merchants refused to release these vehicles. In February this year, the Heath Commission made their first breakthrough and court orders were generated through the Special Tribunal to grant the release of 325 vehicles from 30 merchants in the province. A subsequent court order was generated in May 1998 for a further 12 merchants to release 25 vehicles. These merchants held these vehicles for substantial periods of time and now have storage claims - some amounting to millions of Rands. A legal advisor from the Heath Commission was assigned to advise and assist my department’s case in the Special Tribunal and to finalise the judgements. Almost all these vehicles have now been recovered. In order to finalise this process, the merchants had to submit their claims to the Tribunal. The Tribunal will begin hearing these cases from 17 October 1998. In the interim, members of Judge Heath’s unit are performing detailed inspections on the vehicles in question to evaluate the validity of the merchants’ claim and detect any possible fraudulent activity. Weekend fill-ups and tank overfills Since December 1997, PMT has been generating reports of weekend fill-ups of fuel and tank overfills. As an example, for the month of July this year, 93 271 litres of petrol was filled in 1 844 government vehicles in KwaZulu-Natal over weekends amounting to R210 769.46. During the same period, 289 vehicles overfilled their tanks by 27 609.60 litres which cost the province R59, 354.37. The reports also identify high velocity transactions i.e. an abnormal number of transactions per month. During July, 367 vehicles registered more than 22 transactions for the month, filling a total of 434 228 litres of fuel at a cost of R1 445 738.22. These reports are being distributed to user departments and some positive responses are being received. Officials are now being made to account for the use of vehicles outside accepted standards. However, in order to further reduce these practices, user departments need to be more vigilant in monitoring the reports and disciplining offending officials. Reduction in fleet cost. The most significant success of the IMC is the reduction in total operating costs of the provincial fleet. Within two years, these running costs have been reduced from R14 million per month to R6 million per month. These direct savings were achieved through detection and prevention of fraud, scrutiny of quotations, inspection of vehicles, monitoring of expenditure and the overall tightening of controls. Plan to curb fraud and abuse of government vehicles The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport has developed a multi-pronged plan to crack down on fraud and abuse relating to government vehicles. The following procedures and control measures will be immediately implemented: Committee to monitor and discipline officials who misuse vehicles The management executive committee of KwaZulu-Natal has approved the department’s plan to establish a committee to assess the seriousness of misuse of vehicles, to determine appropriate penalties in accordance with a clearly defined policy, and to draw up a staff code. Misuse of vehicles will be identified by PMT’s investigation and monitoring procedure, by other departments or by members of the public. Logging of fines All traffic fines since November 1997 have been captured onto a database and reports identifying the user department, the registration numbers of the vehicles, date and amount of the fine are being generated. We now have a 125-page report listing outstanding fines obtained by public servants driving government vehicles. The system will also identify officials who repeatedly commit offences. All of this information will be distributed to the heads of all departments for appropriate action to be taken and for disciplinary action to be taken against repeat offenders. Generation of exception reports As I mentioned earlier, the IMC introduced several exception reports which registers weekend fill-ups, tank overfills and high velocity transactions. These reports were being generated monthly and distributed to all departments for follow-up. A system is being introduced to identify under-utilised vehicles i.e. vehicles registering below the minimum mileage travelled thus making it unnecessary for that component to be allocated with a government vehicle. We are now able to generate these reports on a daily basis with First Auto’s new online system of reporting to users on a daily basis. This system has been developed to give users access to up-to-date information on the Internet. The reduced time frame means that users can follow up on potentially fraudulent matters quicker and more efficiently. Decals In order to make government vehicles more visible on the roads, all vehicles should have clearly distinguishable decals. These clearly identify which department the vehicle belongs to and will serve as a deterrent for officials using vehicles without authority or outside normal hours. Use of private plates A number of government vehicles have private registration plates. At the end of July 1998, there were 623 private plates on official vehicles. A cabinet resolution now requires that all official government vehicles bear a ZG, KZN or GG plate. Toll-free number to report misuse of government vehicles The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport will be introducing a toll-free number for members of the public to report vehicle abuse. All matters reported will be logged on a database and feedback will be requested immediately from the relevant user department. The cases will then be handed over to the committee to be evaluated. Authority documentation An itinerary form has been introduced as a compulsory document to be carried by anyone driving a government vehicle. These forms indicate if the driver and trip is authorised and must be approved by the relevant supervisor. Policy for use of government vehicles Transport handbooks outlining the policy and rules for use of government vehicles in KwaZulu-Natal have been compiled and distributed. All transport officers and drivers of official vehicles must be fully acquainted with these rules and ignorance of the policy cannot be used as a defence. Crackdown by the Road Traffic Inspectorate RTI, as always, is in the front-line of our offensive. Immediately after this announcement, RTI will begin an intense crackdown on drivers of government vehicles. This blitz will also be extended to local authority traffic police. When a vehicle is stopped, the following checks will be conducted: a) Does the driver have an itinerary b) Is the itinerary appropriately authorised c) Is the current location consistent with the trip authorised by the itinerary d) Do the details of the passengers correspond with those specified on the itinerary e) Is the driver in possession of a valid driver’s licence If the answer to one or more of a) to d) are NO then a form will be submitted by the officer to PMT to log and investigate the matter. If there is clear evidence of misuse, disciplinary measures will be instituted. For step e), the Road Traffic Act governs the use of public-owned or private vehicles on the roads. RTI officers will have the discretion to confiscate a government vehicle if the driver is not in possession of a valid driver’s licence. In the case of blatant misuse of a government vehicle, RTI officers will impound the vehicle. Previously, a team of 12 transport inspectors had the task of monitoring government vehicle abuse throughout the province. This team was clearly too small to pose a significant threat to public servants who abuse vehicles. For this reason, were are now moving that function to the Road Traffic Inspectorate. With over 300 officers now deployed to lead the offensive, I am confident that we will systematically close in government vehicle misuse. Ladies and gentlemen of the media, the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport is committed to terminating fraud and corruption. We will continue to institute measures to identify and deal with perpetrators, and I give you a firm undertaking that there will be no leniency involved. Government departments are under constant pressure to tighten their belts and we cannot allow criminals to steal public money. Government money is precious and is used to deliver essential services to many thousands of people in this province. It is not meant for private use or to line the pockets of corrupt officials. With the full support of all trade unions representing public sector workers in KwaZulu-Natal, we are confident that this initiative will go a long way in the realisation of one of our main objectives - that of corrupt free public service. I thank you.
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