Chantelle Benjamin
17 August 2007
Johannesburg — GAUTENG driving licence booking problems are worse than ever following a computer crash at Gauteng Shared Services Centre (GSSC) which left officials unable to process 11000 bookings a day for two weeks.
The system was restored on Monday, according to GSSC spokesman Emmanuel Mdawu.
At the time of the crash, the GSSC was already faced with a backlog of 37000 bookings caused by problems with the implementation of the Electronic National Traffic Information System (eNatis), and it is estimated the figure may now be closer to 100000.
The R9m GSSC, which falls under finance MEC Paul Mashatile's authority and has been mired in controversy since it was established five years ago, was set up to handle licence test bookings for the province and to provide Gauteng departments with support services for finance, IT, human resources and procurement.
The centre has been accused of slow payment to external suppliers It is believed the crash, which largely affected driver licence applications and salary payments to staff, was the result of a virus that entered the system through the internet.
Hermene Koorts, Democratic Alliance spokeswoman for finance, said yesterday that she would be asking Mashatile today in the legislature why the public were not informed that the computers were offline.
"We find it extraordinary that a crash of this magnitude can take place and the provincial government tells us nothing about it," said Koorts.
The computer system that was down included the GSSC , the administrative hub of the provincial government, which means that the more than 10000 enquiries received daily by the GSSC call centre regarding driver's and learner's licences could not be processed, she said.
In February, the Gauteng government intervened after five driver's licence-testing stations stopped using the GSSC call centre because of public complaints.
Then in May, Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa said he had given transport MEC Ignatius Jacobs six weeks to clear the backlog in learner's and driver's licence examinations caused by booking delays at the GSSC .
The situation was made worse by repeated delays caused by technical problems in the implementation of eNatis . The centre had been working to reduce the backlog when the system failed two weeks ago.
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