Johannesburg – The South African Taxi Association (Sata) has welcomed the news that the country’s license card- printing machine is quarantined in Europe.
This meant no traffic officer would fine any driver found without a permit, according to Sata spokesperson Illegal Mageza.
“Many of our drivers have battled for months to obtain licenses and we were told by the Department of Transport that the machine contracted a virus and was sent abroad to recuperate,” said Mageza.
Transport Minister Sesifikile Mpalooka confirmed to Straight & Two Beers that the machine was shipped to Europe in November after it fell sick.
“I can confirm that the only machine we have to print license cards contracted a virulent variant and was sent overseas to be vaccinated,” said Mpalooka.
He did not know when the machine would be back.
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“We are all living in a pandemic and the printer was also affected after one of our officials forgot to sanitise it,” added the minister.
He warned, however, that drivers would still have to present their expired licenses when stopped by traffic officials, adding that his department is designing a temporary license for new drivers until the machine is back in commission.
Mpalooka warned Sata to refrain from bribing traffic officers when they are pulled over for driving without licenses.
“I recently gave the taxi industry more than a billion rand to mitigate the impact of Covivi on their businesses when they were forced to carry half the required passengers. That money must not be used to bribe traffic cops,” he warned.
He said the drivers who were worried about insurance claims as a result of expired licences should report recalcitrant insurance companies to his Twitter account, a sphere where he has proven brutally prolific.
The opposition Desperate Alliance (DA) said the blooper by the Transport Department showed Mzansi was a banana republic.
DA leader Jokes Steenhuis fumed: “The bananafication of our country is complete and this will plunge the economy further into junk status.”
In other news, the country’s top judge, Ray Sono has threatened to send the Economically Free Friends leader Selfie Majunju to Robben Island for calling him Barry White this week.
Majunju came to the defence of Tourists Minister Cinderella Seasool who attacked Sono’s state-stealing report.
“He could have at least compared me to Ray Charles, not Barry White,” said Sono, whose baritone scared former president Jakobo Zooma so much he absconded from
appearing before his commission of inquiry.
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