By Roy Cockayne

Pretoria - Vehicle registration transactions inexplicably increased last month by 18.75 percent to 290 697 from 244 806 in June, according to electronic national traffic information system (eNatis) statistics.

The increase occurred despite total new vehicle sales reported by the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA (Naamsa) rising only 8.6 percent to 42 438 units between June and last month, and the used vehicle market remaining under pressure.

Philip van der Merwe, the spokesperson for Tasima, which developed and introduced the eNatis system, said yesterday that 13.95 million transactions were processed by the system last month.

This is a record since the system's first full month of operation in May last year. The previous record of 13.5 million transactions processed was set last October.

The transactions also reflect learner's licence authorisations and licence card orders.

Van der Merwe said Tasima could not comment on the possible reasons for the increase in vehicle registrations. Thabo Tsoletsane, the chief executive of the Road Traffic Management Centre, which manages the eNatis system, was not available for comment.

Motor industry analysts and stakeholders were largely at a loss to explain the sharp increase in vehicle registrations during this period.

Nico Vermeulen, the executive director of Naamsa, had no idea why registrations had risen to such an extent, but believed the only logical explanation was that it possibly resulted from leads and lags because some vehicle registration centres had previously been out of commission.

Brand Pretorius, the chairman of McCarthy Motor Holdings, said he suspected there must have been a bubble in the eNatis system. He said used car sales had improved, but were still not strong.

But Van der Merwe said eNatis had dealt effortlessly with the increase in transaction demand last month.

Tony Twine, a motor industry analyst, said the big jump in registrations was a curiosity and not a reflection of what was happening in the market.

He speculated it could have been caused by the movement of vehicles between dealers in the used vehicle market, which required these vehicles to be registered in the name of the new dealership.

He said what made this possibility more plausible last month than at any other time of the year was that vehicle rental companies tended to rotate their fleets in the third quarter of each year.

Chris de Kock, the sales and marketing director at WesBank, said repossessed vehicles were re-registered three times in a short period, but repossessions had remained flat between June and last month.

He said vehicles it repossessed were first registered in the bank's name, then in a dealer's name when the vehicle entered their stock and then into the name of the end user.

Repossessions by financiers are estimated at between 6 000 and 7 000 vehicles a month.

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