By Sue Segar

Cape Town — Despite initial teething problems, the government’s multi-million rand Electronic National Transport Information System (e-Natis) is up and running — and now ranks among the best of its kind in the world.

These were the words of the Transport Department’s director-general Mpumi Mpofu during a media briefing yesterday.

The briefing followed public hearings on the system with Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa).

In an upbeat presentation, Mpofu said that, despite initial problems the e-Natis system has “stood and has passed the test of system functionality and improved service delivery”.

“The functionality of the e-Natis is nothing short of astonishing. In addition to the issuing of driving licences and the registration and licensing of vehicles, the system’s update interface is utilised by organisations such as the SAPS and vehicle manufacturers, while its query interface is used by virtually all large financial and insurance companies,” he said.

She added that the system’s contravention register forms the cornerstone of the newly launched Administration Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto), while its licence appointment booking system has streamlined the booking process in many provinces.

“The eNatis task management system has revolutionised document workflow at provincial traffic authorities.

“The speed at which transactions is performed is phenomenal — 96% of all transactions are finalised in less than two seconds. 99,8% of all transactions in less than 10 seconds and 99,95% in less than 60 seconds,” Mpofu said.

The director-general said that, before e-Natis was launched on April 12, 2007, its predecessor (Natis) maintained an average of 300 000 transactions a day.

After a changeover period of a week, the e-Natis’s daily average stood at around 350 000 transactions a day.

“Teething problems were briefly experienced, but after a database intervention the average daily transaction volume shot up to the 600 000 mark, which has been maintained ever since.

“The system’s outstanding performance continued and in its first 13 months of operation, an average of 12 million transactions per month was maintained. “This is truly exceptional for a vast and complex system such as the e-Natis.”

The auditor-general’s report said the Transport Department’s failure to conduct a full test on the e-Natis system, which had almost paralysed the country’s licensing system, had led to its huge performance problems.

But, yesterday, auditor-general Terrence Nombembe conceded that, despite initial problems and a few challenges relating to security and the capacity of the system, it is now all systems go.

http://www.witness.co.za/?showcontent&global[_id]=8925