Johannesburg - The Justice Project South Africa has called on Transport Minister Joe Maswanganyi to justify, or at the very least explain, the 71 percent increase in eNaTIS vehicle licence fees for 2018.

Earlier in October Maswangani announced that as from 1 February 2018, an amount of R72 (an increase of R30) would be added to the renewal fees for all motor vehicle licenses as a transaction fee to be paid to the RTMC.

Remember, this RTMC fee that is meant to fund Aarto in order to keep track of you and your fines, is in addition to the annual licence fee that you pay your local registering authority. This means that renewing your vehicle license next year is likely to cost more than R300 in total.

As JPSA points out, the 71.43 percent RTMC fee increase, from R42 to R72, exceeds the current inflation rate (4.8 percent as at August) by almost 15 times. The previous year saw the fee increase by 16.67 percent from R36 to R42.

JPSA added that the RTMC managed to rake in R453 143 790 in transaction fees in the 2016/17 financial year, a 7.93 percent increase over the previous financial year, despite fewer transactions having taken place.