PRESS STATEMENT

Transport responds to Court decision on eNATIS

Date issued: 31 May 2007

Tshwane: The Department would like to clarify matters surrounding the court application to prevent the Beeld newspaper from printing a leaked Management Report from the Auditor General on Information systems audit of the network security.

The Department respects the decision taken by the court and will study the judgement, which may necessitate further comment by the department on this matter. The Department confirms that its intention to apply for an interdict against the Beeld Newspaper was not for the purposes of “gagging” that Newspaper. The Department confirms its decision to apply to court for an interdict against the Beeld newspaper was the correct one. We say this for the following reasons:

· The Department was informed by the Beeld that they had a part of a Management Report relating to the network audit on the eNaTIS system. Accordingly the Department had an obligation to prevent the disclosure of sensitive information contained in that report that could lead to security breaches on the system.

· The Department sincerely and reasonably believed that parts of the Management Report in the possession of the Beeld may have contained sections publication of which may compromise the integrity of the system.

An audit by the Auditor General is conducted along the following procedure:

1. A planning memorandum is drawn by the auditors in which the scope of the audit is defined, and which the procedures are spelt out.

2. Thereafter, the auditors perform the audit and prepare a set of findings which is then discussed with the Department’s representatives, in order to verify the facts and findings, correct factual inaccuracies and obtain their on the findings and recommendations. This process takes the form of a draft report, which is known as a management report. The purpose of such a management report is to disclose the findings and conclusions arising from a follow-up information system audit and to serve as a basis for comments and corrective steps. This report is dealt with on senior management level.

3. Once management has given its inputs, the final report is prepared by the Auditor General and is then presented to Parliament in terms of the Public Audit Act. At this stage the findings cannot be further disputed.

Accordingly, the Department still re-iterates its position that the content of Management Reports do not belong in the public domain until conclusion of the audit process that results in the tabling of the audit report in Parliament.

The Department still considers itself bound by the relationship of confidentiality it has with the Office of the Auditor General in relation to the audit process as defined above.

The department is encouraged by the fact that court did pronounce that the content of the Management Report is confidential.

The Department expresses its concern that an institution like Sanef had openly criticised the Department for its decision to apply to court for an interdict, without attempting to obtain any comments from the Department relating to its court application.

The eNaTIS system was not in production when the audit was conducted in July 2006, but the system was under development. In actual fact, the eNaTIS system was only commissioned in April 2007. During the audit process not a single component of the eNaTIS system was in production. The audit therefore focussed on the development environment that was substantially different than the production environment.

The Department is confident that all the matters relating to the eNaTIS system security raised in the Auditor General’s Management Report (Information systems audit of the network security) has been dealt with through the re-development process and migration from the NaTISto the eNaTIS. The eNaTIS system since its been operational has not been audited.

e-NaTIS did experience problems in the migration process in the vehicle registration component. However, after significant interventions, the system is operating optimally in a stable state, performing in excess of 500 000 transactions per day.

The Department wants to state that investigations are underway relating to all matters that have arisen regarding the eNATIS.

Issued by the Department of Transport

Media contact: Collen Msibi 082 414 5279