Around 2,353 of panel vans, which are certified to carry three passengers, had been altered to carry 16 passengers and were operating on South Africa's roads.
Her investigations into how these illegally converted vehicles were successfully registered on the e-Natis system further exposed the fraudulent action, with the transport department conceding that frontline staff at the licensing offices were manipulating the system.She also said her investigations had found that allegations that the SA Bureau of Standards had failed to conduct adequate quality assurance tests after being requested to do so by department of transport were substantiated.
SABS had failed to conduct the high-speed crash tests on the vehicles and had conducted tests only on a static vehicle. Mkhwebane's report painted these panel vans as deaths traps, adding that the structural defects were caused by, among other things, the cutting of the side panels to put in windows and the anchorage of the safety belts on vehicle seats rather than the chassis to ensure that they were not ripped off during motor vehicle accidents.
She called on the director general of the department of transport and Toyota South Africa to work together to find a speedy solution to ensure the removal of all these vehicles from the roads.
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