The Gauteng North High Court has ordered Telkom to restore telephone services to eNatis following an urgent application by the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC).

In a statement late on Wednesday, Spokesperson Simon Zwane said: “The RTMC brought an application before the court today after Telkom had disconnected telephone lines to eNatis – a national key point – for the second time in one month”.

Zwane said the disconnections disrupted the functioning of vehicle registering authorities throughout the country.

“The registering of vehicles, new driving licences and road traffic contravention could not be performed for a couple of hours because of the disconnection.”

Zwane said the court granted the RTMC an interim order instructing Telkom to restore all suspended lines and related services with immediate effect. He said Telkom was ordered to return to court on 19 February 2018 to give reasons why the order should not be made final.

“It is the second time this month that Telkom has been ordered to desist from disrupting the functioning of the eNatis. On 3 October the court instructed Telkom to restore all services after it had suddenly disconnected all telephone lines used to operate the eNatis.”

Zwane said on that occasion the court ruled that “a rule Nisi is issued calling upon the Respondents to show cause on 18 October 2017 or as soon as the matter may be heard thereafter as to why the hereinabove not be made final”.

He said Telkom did not go to court on the stipulated date but proceeded to disconnect services to eNatis five days later.

Telkom in on record as saying the reason for the disconnection of service relates to arrears owed. But, Zwane said the amounts in arrears were owed to Telkom before the RTMC took over the administration of eNatis.

“The RTMC maintains that it has paid for all services rendered by Telkom from April when it took over the administration of eNatis until today.”