Municipalities ask court to halt further Aarto rollout

With less than two days remaining before the next phase of the controversial Aarto traffic law is due to take effect on 1 July, there is still no clarity on whether the Department of Transport will, as it has done several times before, postpone its implementation at the last minute.

Pressure on the department is even greater this time after the South African Local Government Association (Salga) approached the court for an interdict to halt the next phase of Aarto’s rollout.

Aarto is the acronym for the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences Act. Although the act has been on the statute books since 1998, it has only been implemented in Johannesburg and Tshwane.

The purpose of the act is to deal with traffic offences administratively, reducing the burden on the courts while removing repeat offenders from the roads through a demerit points system.

Municipalities ‘not ready’for Aarto

Minister of Transport Barbara Creecy postponed the implementation of Aarto in 69 municipalities, which had been scheduled for 1 December last year, until 1 July this year because municipalities were not ready.

According to Creecy, the main stumbling blocks were inadequate training of municipal law enforcement officers and administrative staff, as well as the “harmonisation of current law enforcement system[s] used by various municipalities, and funding thereof”.

Salga has confirmed that it declared a dispute earlier this month with the Department of Transport in terms of the Intergovernmental Relations Framework Act. It argues the dispute must be resolved before Aarto’s implementation can proceed.

This follows the recent success of municipalities in the Western Cape in securing an exemption from the 1 July implementation date. After raising objections, the Department of Transport agreed that it would be included at a later stage.

Funding concerns

Salga is particularly concerned about the financial impact on municipalities, many of which are already struggling to fund basic service delivery.

It says the cost of implementing Aarto will exceed the revenue municipalities are expected to receive from Aarto fines, and there is currently no provision for additional funding.

This would mean municipalities would have to divert funds intended for service delivery to subsidise their Aarto responsibilities.

Municipalities raised concerns about the funding model through Salga in November last year, but the Department of Transport has yet to provide a meaningful solution, the organisation said in a statement.

Fines paid within 32 days

Under the current system, motorists who pay their fines within 32 days receive a 50% discount, with the remaining revenue going to the municipality.

If the 32-day period expires without payment, the fine is escalated to the Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA), which then administers the matter and receives 50% of the total revenue. The municipality’s share of the fine may be reduced even further by agency fees if payment is made through another office.

The RTIA is an agency of the Department of Transport.

The 1 July implementation date has yet to be formally proclaimed in the Government Gazette, as required. New regulations setting out the detailed rules for Aarto’s implementation have also not yet been promulgated.

Businesses unprepared

Rob Handfield-Jones, managing director of driving.co.za, told Moneyweb on Friday that even if the implementation was published in the Government Gazette immediately, it would be grossly unfair to expect motorists and businesses to be ready for the wider Aarto rollout only a few days later.

Businesses will have to change their systems, and these systems process information that could later serve as evidence in court, he said. It is therefore not something that can be handled casually.

Cornelia van Niekerk, owner of Fines4U, which administers traffic fines on behalf of thousands of motorists and fleet owners, has meanwhile written a formal letter to both the RTIA and Creecy, highlighting irregularities in the way the RTIA is currently applying the Aarto legislation.

Van Niekerk said Fines4U won a court case in 2017 confirming that the RTIA is bound by the strict statutory timeframes contained in the act, but that the agency is currently disregarding those deadlines.

This, she said, infringes on the rights of motorists.

This article was republished from Moneyweb. Read the original here.