Publications
Partners
Cape Town - A ban on the sale of spare parts from scrapped vehicles has been removed from proposed National Road Traffic Act regulations, the transport department said on Tuesday.
MPs' concerns about the implications of such a ban were taken into account, senior transport official John Motsatsing told Parliament's transport portfolio committee.
In the original draft the sale of spare parts from deregistered vehicles was banned, which could have harmed used car parts dealers.
Democratic Alliance MP Ian Ollis first raised concerns, which prompted MPs to push for the provision in the regulations to be changed.
"You would have affected people who are making a living from scrap parts of a car, from selling that, and that kind of a business will go down if everything of a deregistered car cannot be used," committee chairwoman Ruth Bhengu said.
"That's why the department came back with amendments which allow usage of parts of cars that are still in good condition."
The original draft of the regulations would have had a devastating impact on the scrap metal and insurance industries.
"If we had allowed the regulation... the impact of that would have been the closure of scrapyards, the loss of jobs, and it would have prevented people from getting second-hand parts and made it expensive to buy parts," Bhengu said.
Motsatsing said the regulations were intended to curb theft of motor vehicles for parts. They would have made a significant dent in efforts to eradicate "chop shops", where stolen cars were dismantled.
