RTMC will know on Monday whether its application to take over eNatis from Tasima will succeed

30 March 2017 - 17:52 By Ernest Mabuza
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The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) says the handing over of the electronic National Traffic Information System (eNaTIS) by Tasima can be done in a day.

However‚ Tasima disputes this assertion‚ and stated before the high court in Pretoria on Thursday that‚with a migration plan in place‚ handing over the system would take about eight weeks.

These were arguments heard by Judge Niel Tuchten as he heard an urgent application by the RTMC asking that the court order Tasima to hand over the system to the RTMC.

The eNaTIS system is used to administer drivers' and vehicle licence applications and renewals‚ learners' licence bookings‚ as well as notifications of change of vehicle ownerships and new vehicle registrations.

This contract has been in the hands of Tasima since 2002‚ until a Constitutional Court order on November 9 last year ordered that the system be handed over to the RTMC within 30 days‚

The Department of Transport's RTMC told the high court it was seeking the enforcement of that order.

The Constitutional Court also said unless an alternative transfer management plan was agreed to by the parties within 10 days of the November order‚ the hand-over was to be conducted in terms of the Migration Plan set out in the original agreement made in 2001 between the Department of Transport and Tasima.

The dispute between Tasima and RTMC lay in the intepretation of these orders.

Etienne Labuschagne SC‚ for the RTMC said the hand-over meant the shareholders of Tasima would walk out and employees currently employed by Tasima would be taken over by the corporation.

Labuschagne said what Tasima needed to do to effect the hand-over was to leave the eNaTIS premises and hand the RTMC the keys‚ passwords and source codes of the eNaTIS system.

However‚ Alistair Franklin SC for Tasima‚ said properly interpreted‚ the Constitutional Court order could not yield the outcome the corporation contended for.

Franklin said the Constitutional Court order directed that there must be a migration plan in place to ensure the smooth transfer of the eNaTIS system from Tasima to RTMC.

Franklin said the hand-over was not as simple as RTMC portrayed.

“This notion that there can be a one-day transfer … we contend on the facts that this is highly flawed suggestion on the facts. It is decidedly not what the Constitutional Court contemplated‚ the fortwith handover of the system‚” Franklin said.

Franklin said the suggestion by the RTMC that hand-over entailed Tasima simply moving away and making way for another person was incorrect‚

Franklin said if a migration plan was followed‚ the hand-over would take about eight weeks.

The court will pass judgment on Monday morning.

- TMG Digital

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