25/01/2026
To the community at large.
This one is for you so you can have a clear understanding of what learner transporters go through.
The Department of Transport mandates that Learner Transport Operators must hold operating permits under public transport legislation.
On paper, this sounds reasonable. Regulation implies order, safety, and accountability.
But here is the lived reality.
Operators have submitted applications. Files opened. Forms completed. Fees paid. Follow-ups made. Silence in return. No approvals. No rejections. No permits issued.
In effect, the permit exists only as a requirement, not as an obtainable instrument.
Despite this, enforcement continues.
Vehicles are stopped and impounded. Fines are issued. Owners are told to “go get permits” that the issuing authority itself does not provide. Income is lost. Debt accumulates. Families suffer. Funny enough they still impound our cars when produce the receipts we get from them to show that we have applied.
This is where the problem deepens.
Law assumes the possibility of compliance.
Regulation assumes a functioning state process.
Enforcement assumes fairness.
When the state enforces a requirement while simultaneously disabling access to compliance, the burden is shifted entirely onto the citizen. Responsibility is demanded without capacity being granted.
This creates a coercive cycle:
• Apply endlessly with no outcome
• Operate to survive
• Get punished for non-compliance
• Pay fines, storage fees, release costs
• Repeat
At what point does enforcement stop being regulation and start becoming extraction?
Because if a permit cannot be issued, yet penalties are consistently collected, then the system is no longer correcting behaviour. It is monetising impossibility.
We are not asking to be exempt from the law.
We are asking for a law that can be complied with.
We are asking for a state that does not criminalise survival.
So are they actually legally extorting money from us by impounding our cars? 🤔
IPLTA Pro : Nqobile Nxumalo
