By Roy Cokayne

Pretoria - The SA Bureau of Standards (SABS) and the national vehicle licensing authority are blaming each other after hundreds of commercial vehicles ended up on the country's roads without roadworthy certificates.
 
About 420 Asiawing commercial vehicles with a mass of more than 3 500kg were registered and licensed without passing the necessary tests.
 
Theuns Blom, senior manager of automotive at the regulatory division of the SABS, said last Thursday that in terms of the National Road Traffic Act, the vehicles should not have been registered without a roadworthy certificate.
 
Blom said the SABS's scope of responsibility was to determine the legal compliance of a product to the minimum safety, health and environmental requirements laid down by the vehicle compulsory specification, relevant national standards and other legislation relevant to automotive products.
 
But Werner Koekemoer, the project manager for eNatis, claimed that unprocedural licensing was caused by the SABS.
 
The vehicles were apparently imported into South Africa by China Motor Franchise, which was not available for comment.
 
Collen Msibi, a national transport department spokesperson, took a more conciliatory stance and stressed there was no need "to point fingers" and everyone involved in the process "needed to join forces" to get these vehicles off South Africa's roads.
 
However, Thabo Tsoletsane, chief executive of the Road Traffic Management Centre, said there was "an issue" related to the model numbers entered on the traffic management system by the SABS after it had completed the homologation of these vehicles.
 
Tsoletsane said the system incorrectly showed that these vehicles were roadworthy, which had now been corrected.
 
The owners of these vehicles have reported major technical problems involving the steering, clutch and brakes.
 
Blom said the SABS would complete its evaluation on the Asiawing vehicles by the end of this week. "The roadworthiness testing of new or used vehicles is not the responsibility of the SABS … [but] of the vehicle owners and sales outlets," he said.
 
"The SABS, however, is contacting the owners of the vehicles to inform them that they should take their vehicles for a roadworthiness test. This is for their own account."
 
Blom said it had been deemed within the mandate of the SABSto inform the customers of these vehicles of potential roadworthiness and safety concerns.
 
However, he said quality-related issues needed to be taken up with the dealers and the importer of the vehicles.