Pretoria - The Retail Motor Industry Organisation (RMI), which represents about 7 800 businesses, has written a scathing letter to transport minister Jeff Radebe about the problems experienced with the introduction of the eNatis vehicle registration system.
Business Report has a copy of the letter written by the RMI's chief executive, Jeff Osborne, which states: "Transactions of vehicles and equipment totalling in excess of R1.5 billion cannot be effected as no vehicle licensing documents can be obtained for submission to the financial institutions. In other words, many businesses are at a standstill and unable to trade."
Osborne said franchised dealers were suffering heavy costs because they were defaulting on contracts to deliver vehicles to customers because of delays at registration offices while some body builders were "facing closure due to financial payments being withheld, since vehicles, which they have bodied, cannot be registered".
He said the delays caused by eNatis not operating at full capacity was a major threat to the viability of motor vehicle dealers, vehicle testing stations and vehicle body builders.
"If this matter is not resolved it is likely to result in significant levels of business closures. We appeal to you, the Minister, who is ultimately responsible for all transport related matters, to draw on all resources available at your disposal to resolve the current impasse as a matter of extreme urgency," he said.
Osborne said there had been great hopes for an improvement in service deliverywith the new eNatis system. However, the switchover during April had been "an absolute catastrophe for our members and the negative financial implications to the South African motor industry and the general economy is of extreme concern".
Collen Msibi, a transport department spokesperson, said on Monday that Radebe's office had not received any letter from the RMI.
Ntau Letebele, another transport department spokesperson, said they were now processing between 45 000 and 60 000 transactions an hour on the new eNatis system compared with about 30 000 an hour on the previous system.
"Given the performance of the system, we are quite confident that the backlog will be cleared very soon," he said.
However, Letebele was unable to quantify the number of transactions that constituted the backlog.
Problems with the introduction of the new system led to the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA delaying the release of its monthly new vehicle sales report until Monday.