COPS ARREST OVER 10 DRIVING SCHOOL OWNERS, INSTRUCTORS

MANZINI – Could the country’s road accidents be caused by motorists who bypass traffic laws and never bother to learn road signs?

After the police received information about such illicit dealings conducted by driving school owners, they launched an undercover operation.
During the operation, they managed to arrest over 10 driving school ownersers, including instructors who were found in possession of counterfeited learner’s licences.

Manzini Traffic In-Charge, Assistant Superintendent Siboniso Shongwe and his team, engaged in the operation on Friday last week, and stopped most driving school owners and instructors while conducting driving lessons to clients.
Most of the owners were found in possession of forged learner’s licences, which upon investigations and inspections, were confirmed to be fraudulent.

The date stamps were allegedly found to be forged together with signatures of senior police officers who head local traffic departments.
Such signatures are found at the back of the two passport sized photos, which accompany the learner’s form acquired at the revenue offices. The competence numbers at the back of the learner’s form were also found to be none existent by the police.

When the vehicles were stopped during road-side checks, mostly near the post office, magistrates court and Coates Valley, they had the forged learner’s licences inside the vehicles.
The procedure of acquiring learner’s licences requires aspiring drivers to get forms from the revenue offices and the two passport sized photos.

An amount of not more that E30 is paid by the person, who is then ordered to report to the police station to be tested on road signs for the learner’s licence.
However, in this case, owners of driving schools and instructors bypass the process, stamp and then sign the licences, which then qualify the aspiring drivers to drive in the country’s public roads.
This is without learning any of the stipulated road signs. The road signs come in four categories, which is the warning signs, regulatory, information and also the road markings.

According to Assistant Superintendent Shongwe, more arrests are to be expected as there were suspicions that the practice had been going on for quite some time now. “We received a tip off about the illegal activities conducted by the accused persons and investigations were instituted,” Shongwe briefly said on Saturday.
It was further gathered that the accused persons have been involved in the issuance of such fraudulent learner’s licences at a cost.

Instead of the E30 paid at the revenue offices, the driving school owners charged each learner driver from E500 to E800 for each of the licences.
Sources within the Royal Swaziland Police (RSP) said it was suspected that with a number of learners failing road sign tests, the number of people who had to go through the road signs at the police station accumulated and made it difficult for driving school owners to make enough money.

“Therefore, by-passing the process, they speed things up and allow more people to register for driving lessons. In that way, they make more money within a short period of time,” the source who refused to be named alleged.
The arrests took place over the past two days.

On Saturday, about nine accused persons, mostly driving school owners appeared in court before Magistrate Sebenzile Ndlela, while yesterday one owner made a court appearance before Magistrate Nelisiwe Hlophe. 
In statements submitted in court, one of the learner drivers, Silindile Ntjalintjali, revealed that she went to one of the driving school, Power Driving School and after paying an amount of E2 000 for driving lessons, was informed that she would have to pay an extra amount of E500 for a learner’s licence, which she did.

She said after collecting the learner’s application form from the Revenue offices, she handed same to her instructor, who was in the company of an unknown man.
She added that upon making the payment, she was given her learner’s licence, without even visiting the police station to get tested for the different categories of road signs.

“After a while, while going about my driving lessons, we met up with the police during a roadside check, who stopped and searched the vehicle. They found some learner’s licences and took us to the police station,” Dlamini stated in the statements.

The affected learner drivers, whose names were found in charge sheets presented in court included teachers, nurses and mostly students from local higher learning institutions. However, they were not charged or arrested.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: