By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Border Management Authority (BMA) commissioner Dr Michael Masiapato officially unveiled their latest digital transformation initiative, new Vehicle Targeting System (VTS).
A new digital tracking system is used to curb vehicle theft and to prevent smuggling of stolen vehicles across South Africa’s borders.
Lebombo, which borders Mozambique, is one of the key ports identified as a hotspot for such smuggling activities, along with other ports bordering Botswana, Lesotho and Zimbabwe.
The VTS is a joint initiative of the BMA and the International Vehicle Identification Desk, established under a Memorandum of Understanding and executed under the Authority’s mandate in terms of the Border Management Authority Act 2 of 2020.
It has already helped recover 83 vehicles valued at over R46 million since its implementation. The system has also flagged thousands of cases involving vehicles with outstanding documentation.
Masiapato said the vehicle targeting system alerts border guards about which vehicle to look out for before it reaches them.
“Hundreds of thousands of vehicles cross our land borders. Inspecting all of them is impossible. The Inspecting a few of them at random delays honest travellers while the vehicle that matters drives past, because it looks exactly like the one in front of it.”
Masapiato said, often, when a car is reported stolen, it has already crossed the border.
“Once out of the country, the car gets replated, re-registered and gets sold to someone. Back in South Africa, the owner spends months dealing with his car insurance enterprise to address the challenge,” he said.
Masapiato described the VTS technology as simple.
“The cameras above these lanes [at the port of entry] read the number plate of every vehicle crossing the line, in both directions, day and night. Nothing is chosen by hand,” he said.
“A central system checks each vehicle number plate, in seconds, against records of stolen and the circulated vehicles, confirmed cloned plates, ownership records that bear signs of fraud, and financed vehicles travelling without the consent of the institution that owns them.
Masiapato said, “In light of vehicle theft and cross-border vehicle smuggling, the objective of the VTS is to replace indiscriminate manual inspection of vehicles with intelligence-led selection to enable officers to intervene where data points to, rather than at random.”
This forms part of its digital transformation journey, as the BMA is moving away from the mundane, inefficient, repetitive random checks to intelligence-led and technology-driven targeted interceptions to enhance national security and combat cross-border vehicle smuggling, added Masiapato.