As media scrutiny continued around Julius Malema yesterday, it appeared he no longer had a valid driver's licence and that he also had several unpaid fines. The Mercury has reliably learned, and confirmed, that Malema's driver's licence expired in September last year and has not been renewed. It has also been established that the ANC Youth League president has 12 outstanding traffic fines, amounting to R4 450. The offences were committed during the past two years around in Joburg. Eleven of them were for speeding and one for jumping a red robot. The fines range from R100 to R1 100 from September 2008 until September last year. Although Malema is known to be chauffeured, as the legal owner of the car he is liable for the fines - unless he can prove he was not the driver.
According to an official at the traffic department, nine of Malema's fines have "stagnated" after several failed attempts by traffic officials to serve summons for the outstanding fines at an address in Seshego, Limpopo. The Joburg Metro Police Department claims he could not be found, despite Malema being a prominent figure. All the fines were linked to a C-class Mercedes-Benz, which Malema last week confirmed as the only vehicle that he owned. This is not the first time Malema has been on the wrong side of the country's traffic laws.
Reports in November said he was being probed by Deputy Transport Minister Jeremy Cronin for verbally abusing Limpopo traffic officials who had stopped him after trapping him speeding at 107km/h in a 60km/h zone. According to the reports, traffic chiefs had rounded up the nine officers who had pulled Malema off the road within two hours of the incident and apparently issued them with letters and gave them less than two hours to supply a written explanation for their "ill-treatment" of Malema. It was further reported that Malema was not issued with a R1 500 speeding fine after he had sought the political intervention of Limpopo Transport MEC Pinkie Kekana. This follows a week of controversy surrounding Malema's lifestyle and business connections after The Mercury broke a story on his millions. The paper started a series of lifestyle audits with Malema when it was found that he owned two houses worth R4.6 million, wears a watch worth R250 000 and has been seen in a range of expensive vehicles.
He has also been seen on two separate occasions in a a R1.2m Range Rover that lacked number plates. Malema refused to comment on the outstanding traffic fines or his expired driver's licence. When he was initially contacted he asked for a request via Sms, but failed to respond to that and to numerous follow-up telephone calls.
However, youth league spokesman Floyd Shivambu responded on Malema's behalf, saying: "We don't know anything about that, so I won't be commenting." Shivambu said the information was confidential and threatened to "act" if it was published.
Source: IoL
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