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ANC traffic bosses run up fines

South Africa's top traffic bosses, transport minister S'bu Ndebele and the Road Traffic Management Corporation's acting head Collins Letsoala have run up a raft of traffic violations in the past three years, City Press reported on Sunday.

While Ndebele and Letsoala threatened to confiscate the driving licences of road hogs and speeders after the road carnage of the year-end holiday season, vehicles for which the men were listed as the registered owners have been issued with 11 fines in Pretoria and Johannesburg in the past three years, the newspaper reported.

City Press reported that official records showed the traffic fines for a silver BMW 5 Series registered to Ndebele went through a camera trap at between 146 and 250km/h on the N1 North in Johannesburg in July, 2010. The next day the same car was trapped  at between 96 and 100km/h in a 60km/h zone - but that penalty was cancelled.

'NOT ABOVE THE LAW'

Ndebele's spokesman, Tiyani Rikhotso, told the newspaper the fine was probably an error that lay with the dealer because the minister sold the car in June 2010 and had never driven it outside kwaZulu-Natal.

Nine notices of prosecution were against vehicles owned by Letsoala between October 2008 and March 2011, five for speeding and four for parking violations, City Press reported.

Letsoala told the newspaper he was not the driver of the vehicles.

"I have a driver who takes me around and my wife drives all those vehicles... a lot of people drive those cars. But like any ordinary law citizen, I pay all the fines under my name. I'm not above the law."

Justice Project SA's chairman Howard Dembovsky said the fact that records showed that the speeding fines for Ndebele's BMW and five of Letsoalo's fines were "paid" suggested the two had paid the fines themselves and thus admitted guilt.
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