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Image: OUTA
OUTA raises concerns over RTIA’s AARTO PPP tender
• OUTA challenges the rushed AARTO procurement process, warning that December timelines and compressed deadlines undermine fair and competitive bidding.
• The tender risks duplicating existing state capacity and outsourcing core administrative functions already managed within government systems, potentially at significant long-term cost.
• Private profit incentives threaten trust in traffic enforcement, with OUTA cautioning that linking commercial gain to infringement administration could erode fairness and public confidence in AARTO.
The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) has formally written to Transport Minister Creecy and the Chairperson of the Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA), to raise serious concerns about a large, complex public–private partnership (PPP) tender, linked to the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences Act (AARTO), issued over the December 2025 holiday period.
The tender, published on 8 December, with a compulsory briefing scheduled shortly after the year-end shutdown period, on 20 January and a closing date of 3 February, which was later extended to 13 February 2026. OUTA questions whether this late extension meaningfully mitigates the risks created by the original compressed timetable and warns that the process remains rushed for a procurement of this scale, with serious implications for fairness, competition, and transparency.
OUTA is particularly concerned that the tender appears to outsource core administrative and enforcement-support functions that already exist within government. The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC), through the NaTIS platform, already manages national traffic administration systems that interface directly with AARTO processes. Duplicating this capacity through a private contractor risks higher costs, operational complexity, and weakened institutional capability.
The organisation also questions the appropriateness of introducing private commercial incentives into systems that support traffic infringement enforcement. “Traffic enforcement is not meant to operate as a profit-driven exercise,” said Wayne Duvenage, CEO of OUTA. “When private entities stand to benefit from administrative processes linked to fines, it creates perverse incentives and erodes public trust. That is exactly what AARTO does not need.”
OUTA has called on the Minister and RTIA to urgently explain the rationale for this procurement approach, to make the business case underpinning it public, and to clarify why existing state capacity is being bypassed. “AARTO already suffers from a credibility deficit,” Duvenage said. “Pushing through a complex, high-risk outsourcing deal under tight timelines only deepens public suspicion. If this system is to be lawful, trusted, and effective, the procurement process must be beyond reproach.”
OUTA says it will continue to monitor the matter closely and engage with authorities to ensure that traffic enforcement systems serve the public interest, not commercial gain.
More information
A soundclip from Adv Stefanie Fick, OUTA's Executive Director of Accountability, is available here in English and here in Afrikaans.
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