The eNaTIS provides the Department of Transport with a highly effective means to enforce roadworthiness testing.

Due to an administrative oversight on the part of the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS), the vehicles in question, although being operated on South Africa’s roads, had not been subjected to roadworthiness testing as is required for all RTQS vehicles upon each licensing.

‘The Department was informed that vehicles distributed by a certain local importer had been found to be of substandard quality and had, allegedly, not been inspected to establish their roadworthiness,’ says Werner Koekemoer, the eNaTIS Project Manager. ‘Although the matter was raised with the Department, responsibility in this regard rests with the SABS. As the Inspectorate of Manufacturers, Builders and Importers, the SABS is the only authority that can link models to the eNaTIS and is, moreover, responsible for ensuring that imported vehicles conform to all the applicable specifications. Fortunately, the eNaTIS provides the Department with a highly effective means to ascertain – and enforce – the roadworthiness of vehicles. In this instance we intervened by means of the system to correct an administrative oversight on the part of the SABS, thus ensuring that a substantial number of imported vehicles will soon be undergoing roadworthiness testing. In addition, the functionality built into the system will prevent this situation from recurring in the future.’

At the heart of the process controlling the standard of imported vehicles is something known as homologation. Homologation, in a nutshell, entails that the Inspectorate of Manufacturers, Builders and Importers, i.e. the SABS, establishes that a specific vehicle model complies with the national standards for its type as tested. Once a specific model has been homologated, the SABS links the model to the manufacturer, importer or builder (MIB) which may then introduce new vehicle records of the specific design onto the system. It is the responsibility of the MIB to ensure, through its own quality system, that every vehicle of the design is indeed built to the design the SABS has homologated.

‘The model numbers under scrutiny were linked to the importer when the previous version of the system, the NaTIS, was still in operation,’ explains Koekemoer. ‘At that time it was still possible to link any model as not requiring roadworthiness certification. The models in question had been erroneously marked as such. This meant that when a new vehicle was sold and the first owner registered and licensed the vehicle, the system would not require certification of roadworthiness before issuing a licence disc as this was how the model had been linked.’

Courtesy of the new system’s functionality an oversight of this nature is no longer possible. ‘All the vehicles in question have a gross vehicle mass (GVM) of more than 3,500 kg, and according to the relevant legislation such vehicles must be certified roadworthy before they are allowed to operate on public roads,’ says Koekemoer. ‘The eNaTIS functionality automatically marks a vehicle design (model) as requiring roadworthiness testing if the GVM exceeds 3,500 kg.’

Had the Department not intervened, the vehicles in question would have remained in operation until such time as their licences expired and compulsory roadworthiness testing came into effect. The last of the vehicles’ licences expire in August 2008, and it goes without saying that the Department found it unacceptable that these potentially unsafe vehicles would remain on our roads for many months to come.

The Department informed the SABS that the vehicles – more than 400 in total – will be marked on the eNaTIS as requiring roadworthiness testing. The Department has also provided the SABS with the details of each vehicle’s owner and has requested the organisation to contact all of the owners, explaining that their vehicles need to undergo roadworthy testing immediately.

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