Pretoria - The government is prepared to engage with people, mostly driving school operators who, yesterday, demonstrated at the Akasia Licencing Department in Pretoria against the online booking system.
However, Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula said they remained cognisant of the fact that their right to protest should not be at the detriment of services delivery.
Yesterday, Mbalula met aggrieved driving schools operators who had been shutting down operators at testing centres across the province, demanding the scrapping of the online booking system.
He said operators had been burning tyres and blocking testing centres across the province “to make the government aware that the online system was killing their businesses”.
They said the system made it difficult for them to get slots for their clients. The operators said it sidelined the elderly, poor and illiterate.
Mbalula, however, said the government was in possession of a court interdict that needed to be enforced to prohibit disruptive protest action.
He said MEC for Public Transport and Roads Infrastructure in Gauteng, Jacob Mamabolo, was scheduled to meet operators in Johannesburg to discuss the matter.
Mbalula said Mamabolo was due to give a directive for all driving licence centres to open from Tuesday.
“My biggest concern is the security of the workers, because they have been attacked with guns and all of that; as you can see the violent protest outside.
“In a democratic state like ours, the rule of law dictates that you cannot infringe on the rights of others. It is fine if people are protesting. We will listen to them,” he said.
Mbalula said operators could put forward their concerns about the online services and how it affected their business, but the primary objective was to make acquiring a driving licence simple and accessible for everyone.
“The workers here have raised issues with me about whether or not the online booking system will affect their employment, and the CEO of Road Traffic Management Corporation, advocate Makhosini Msibi, addressed that and there is no way their employment will be affected.”
He said the worry was that services had been disrupted.
Driving school operator Cassper Mashig said he could not say for sure what was going to happen today because the operators were still frustrated and felt like nothing changed for them.
Operator Charles Mapoulo told Mbalula that Msibi and his team were not telling him the truth.
He said this digitising of the process did not take into account that the elderly did not have smart phones and emails, and the poor could not afford data to keep re-trying.
Msibi, however, explained that the elderly and those who had date constraints could walk in and be assisted to make bookings.
He said the operators wanted to have access to book appointments for people, but that could not be permitted because the system had to also protect people’s private information.
Mbalula also urged all motorists to renew their driving licences. He said the backlog had been eliminated.
He said he could not promise another extension of the deadline for the renewal of licences beyond this month.
Pretoria News