The Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA) has slammed media reports stating the agency rushed to Parliament to push through proposed amendments to the Aarto Act as "unfounded and misleading".
The draft Aarto Amendment Bill seeks to have e-mail introduced as a means of serving infringement notices. Reports that the RTIA will do away with serving infringement notices by registered mail in an effort to save millions on postage fees are, however, untrue.
"The impression created that the Bill seeks to replace registered mail by ordinary mail is completely incorrect. The Amendment Bill does not eradicate the traditional methods of service by registered mail or in person. It simply introduces other methods, in addition to these tried and tested methods, in order to introduce the related technological efficiencies, which will benefit all stakeholders concerned," said the RTIA in a statement.
The RTIA did not respond to questions asking whether adoption of the amendments to the Act will see e-mail replacing registered mail as a means of serving notices, and what the impact on the South African Post Office will be.
The draft Aarto Amendment Bill was published for public comment on 28 June, allowing 30 days for input. The RTIA emphasised that the process to amend the Act has been subjected to extensive public consultation process from February 2013 when the Amendment Bill was first published for comment and various stakeholders and interested parties submitted their input for consideration.
Pay up
National chairman of the Justice Project South Africa (JPSA) Howard Dembovsky says reports stating infringement notices issued since 22 December are now invalid because they were not followed up by a courtesy letter are grossly incorrect.
According to the existing Aarto Act, the RTIA is required to serve infringement notices by registered mail. After 32 days, a courtesy letter is sent also by registered mail, where after an enforcement order will be issued if the infringer has still not paid the fine.
The Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) has allegedly not sent out courtesy letters since 22 December, due to postage fees reaching approximately R8 million a month for infringement notices. The JMPD declined to comment on the post issue, referring a request back to the RTIA, which did not respond despite numerous attempts by ITWeb.
"Whilst it is most certainly true that these infringement notices have not followed the prescribed processes laid down in the Aarto Act, the assumption by offenders who have been issued with infringement notices that this will mean that they can tear such notices up and throw them in the bin as they will be automatically cancelled, is far from the truth," says Dembovsky.
"Despite the fact that Aarto infringement notices issued by the JMPD since 22 December 2012 have not proceeded to the subsequent stages of courtesy letters and enforcement orders as is prescribed by the Act, they were sent by registered mail as is required by the Act. The postal strike severely affected the service of these infringement notices and as a result, service did not occur within 40 days of the alleged infringement as is required."
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