E Cape fake licences probed
2004-01-14 09:24
East London - The Eastern Cape government has launched an investigation after it was discovered that hundreds of provincial driver's licences were acquired fraudulently, police said on Tuesday.
People from as far as Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape travel to the Eastern Cape to get fraudulent driver's licences at the Nkonkobe municipality in Fort Beaufort, a police source told The Dispatch.
The Fort Beaufort driving testing centre was identified as one of the busiest for illegal driver's licences for people from all over the country, a police report into the matter said.
It said Fort Beaufort chief traffic officer Vusumzi Fiki and Mava Fesi, a driving school owner from Port Elizabeth, were arrested recently and charged with fraud and corruption.
Fiki and Fesi allegedly collaborated to issue fraudulent driver's licences. The two were released on R10 000 bail each.
A task team created to deal with the matter found that Umtata and Port Elizabeth were also notorious for illegal licences.
King William's Town, East London, Idutywa and several Port Elizabeth stations were identified as some of the driving schools which connived with traffic officers to issue false licences in the Eastern Cape.
At 19 people have been arrested since the task team was created, more than 60 false driver's licences at Umtata, Queenstown, East London, Mdantsane, Mount Frere, Idutywa and Fort Beaufort were seized.
The arrests included that of Umtata traffic chief Andre Rossouw and Ntombodidi Beauty Tyali. They were charged with corruption, obstruction and bribery regarding unroadworthy vehicles and tickets for traffic offences.
Three suspects were arrested and driver's licence answer sheets were confiscated at Idutywa. Six police inquiry dockets on fraudulent licences have been opened so far.
Besides the 505 cases of fraudulent licenses found in Humansdorp alone, the police team was busy investigating and collecting information on other similar cases at Mzimvubu municipality, Grahamstown, Alicedale, Aliwal North and Alicedale.
- SAPA