RTIA says OUTA withdrew challenge as Aarto Phase 2 expands to 60 municipalities

The Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA) says the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) withdrew its legal challenge against the second phase roll-out of the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) system at the eleventh hour.

Who, what and when

Phase 2 of the Aarto roll-out began on 1 July, extending the scheme beyond its two pilot municipalities, Tshwane and Johannesburg, to a total of 60 municipalities. Outa had approached the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria in July seeking the suspension of Phase 2.

RTIA response and parliamentary briefing

Briefing the parliamentary portfolio committee on transport on 4 August, RTIA board chair Bonolo Ramokhele said Outa realised at the last minute that “they were terribly mistaken”. He said the agency had faced other legal challenges to Phase 2 and had been able to successfully defend them in court.

Other legal actions

Ramokhele referred to an urgent application by the South African Local Government Association (Salga) in June, which was ultimately struck from the roll. The City of Cape Town also filed a dispute, and the city is not part of the municipalities included in Phase 2.

RTIA’s stated purpose for Aarto

RTIA officials emphasised that the programme is aimed at enhancing road safety, simplifying traffic fine management and decriminalising minor offences by moving to administrative penalties.

Ramokhele told the committee:

“By the end of today, there will be 30 to 40 South Africans who are going to die on our roads and some of them may die because somebody was on a cellphone, somebody has been drinking, somebody has jumped a red robot.”

He added:

“So, we should celebrate the Aarto programme because it’s attempting to actually do away with that. At its core, it’s not a punitive fines mechanism but a programme that government is putting into place to try and reduce road fatalities and reduce the impact of those fatalities on our economy, as well as our loved ones and our families.”

Next phases and measures

RTIA registrar and CEO Matsemela Moloi said the third phase is expected to begin in March 2027 and will include phasing in the remaining 151 local municipalities. He said Phase 4 will introduce the points demerit system initially for selected contraventions and will include a rehabilitation programme.

Early operational figures and revenue versus safety debate

RTIA executive programme manager Helen Kgamanyane said the system has been active since 1 July. She reported that 2,024 notices were issued from 1 to 27 July and that a total of R976,950 has been paid towards those notices. She cautioned that the amount could include notices paid before July.

Kgamanyane said the agency’s mandate with Aarto is about road safety and saving lives rather than revenue generation:

“That is something that we wanted to put forward, that as RTIA and Aarto, we are not in the business of revenue generation, but we are in the business of saving lives and reducing the socio-economic burden of crashes, because that also impacts our sister department, which is the Road Accident Fund.”

What remains undisputed

RTIA says legal challenges to Phase 2 have occurred but that OUTA withdrew its case before the scheduled hearing. The agency has described Aarto as a safety-focused programme that decriminalises minor road offences and will be rolled out further in planned future phases.