A moratorium or amnesty is set to be introduced to prevent traffic police from harassing tourist vehicle owners for not having a valid operating licence. Minister of Tourism Patricia de Lille confirmed the decision while speaking to delegates at a Southern Africa Tourism Services Association conference in Durban at the weekend. “The Department of Transport is investigating and conducting a legal assessment of the possibility [of implementing] a moratorium/amnesty on law enforcement.
“But what we always get is a ‘Band-Aid’ on the problem and then we clear the backlog but while we are clearing the backlog, the backlog builds up again [from new applications] because we have a systemic problem at the NPTR.” Initial backlog cleared De Lille said at the weekend that the Tourism Business Council of South Africa and Satsa have worked with the Department of Transport to improve the turnaround time for the issuing of tourism operator licences.