Apart from the IRS, is there any government agency as universally dreaded as the Department of Motor Vehicles?<\/p>\n
In Connecticut, things at the DMV hit a notorious low point in 2015, when the department shut down for a week to install a new computer system, and snafus in the reboot triggered days of six- and seven-hourlong wait lines.<\/p>\n
Such is the challenge facing the department\u2019s new commissioner, former Aetna IT specialist and UConn alum\u00a0Sibongile Magubane \u201976 (CLAS).<\/p>\n
The DMV\u2019s massive brick headquarters sits amid stately houses in Old Wethersfield, south of Hartford. Magubane, who goes by the resonant nickname of Bongi, greeted me in her office, a large room with walls bereft of decoration. She hadn\u2019t had time, she said \u2014 from day one, on April 1, she\u2019d been working nonstop.<\/p>\n
I noted that April Fools\u2019 Day might not be the most auspicious date to begin running this state agency, and asked Magubane if she agreed that her new department is the one Connecticut residents spend the most time hating on.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd it doesn\u2019t have to be like that. It is due to circumstances that are fixable.\u201d<\/p>\n
If anyone can fix it . . .<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Magubane knows something about difficult circumstances. She was born in South Africa during the apartheid era. Forget about registering a vehicle, Magubane had no birth certificate \u2014 black babies weren\u2019t issued them. She lived in a two-family house in a township outside Durban, with no electricity and 12 family members crowded into three rooms. Her father was a university student active in the anti-apartheid movement. \u201cMy grandmother washed laundry for white people,\u201d Magubane recalled, then chuckled. \u201cRumor has it that she also brewed beer.\u201d<\/p>\n Her family\u2019s destiny swerved unexpectedly when her father, through a connection in the anti-apartheid movement, got offered a scholarship \u2014 to UCLA. And so in 1964, at age nine, Magubane boarded a plane to the United States.<\/p>\n \u201cI left South Africa with my English name, Pelegrine. Africans couldn\u2019t use African names when they went to school, so we were baptized with English names.\u201d When the family landed in the U.S., they jettisoned the children\u2019s English names. \u201cMy father, that was his first act of defiance. So when I landed in America, I was Sibongile. I was in a new country with a new name.\u201d<\/p>\n Her father, the late Bernard Magubane, went on to get a doctorate in sociology and become a beloved professor at UConn. A celebrated scholar and activist, he was best known for his groundbreaking 1979 book, \u201cThe Political Economy of Race and Class in South Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n Bongi spent the second half of her childhood in California and then in Connecticut, adjusting to being American, learning English by watching TV sitcoms like \u201cLeave it to Beaver.\u201d Her father encouraged a love of reading.<\/p>\n \u201cOn Saturdays he would work all morning, come home at exactly 1 p.m., and pile us all in the car for a family day trip.\u201d Bookstores were a frequent destination. \u201cI knew every bookstore between Connecticut and Washington. If he came to my house today, he would see nothing but wall-to-wall books.\u201d<\/p>\n In the fall of 1972, Bongi Magubane enrolled as a 17-year-old freshman at UConn, where she majored in math and formed lifelong friendships. One was with\u00a0Elease Wright \u201976 (ED)\u00a0who, like Magubane, went on to enjoy a long career at Aetna, where she rose to become chief human resources officer.<\/p>\n \u201cMy first impression back then of Bongi was that she was very smart and thoughtful,\u201d Wright recalls. \u201cAnd straightforward. She\u2019s not pretentious, and she always tells you the truth. She doesn\u2019t sugarcoat.\u201d<\/p>\n That trait should serve her well in the administration of a new governor who, when it comes to the DMV, clearly does not want to sugarcoat. Announcing Magubane\u2019s appointment, Lamont called the department, with its 674 employees and $67 million budget, \u201coverly bureaucratic and arduous,\u201d and introduced Magubane as \u201ca sharp, solutions-oriented thinker with a strong business acumen\u201d who would innovate, cut red tape, and make the agency more user-friendly.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re not going to recognize DMV in four years,\u201d the governor promised.<\/p>\n