Printer back online after driving licence backlog grows to 350,000 cards

There is a backlog of 350,000 driving licence cards after the country’s only printing machine was out of commission for five weeks. The department of transport says the printer is back in full production and expects to clear the backlog by the end of August.

At the beginning of May, the printer was taken out of production for three weeks to replace a broken part identified during routine maintenance. The department said it would not lead to a backlog and encouraged the public to continue applying for their driving licence cards as normal. 

After a testing period over the past three weeks with 60,000 cards produced, the machine is expected to ramp up production to 120,000 cards per week.

The department says it is working on introducing a new driving licence card as approved by the cabinet in August 2022. The new card will be launched before the end of the current financial year as part of the process to modernise driving licence production in SA.

SA has only one driving licence printer and this fact left many motorists frustrated when it was out of service between November 2021 and January 2022. It compounded a driving licence backlog caused by a Covid-19 lockdown imposed on the country in 2020 and 2021 that forced licensing centres to close.

AfriForum said the recent breakdown of the country’s only licensing card machine was an indication that the validity of drivers' licences should be increased from the current five years. AfriForum, the AA and Outa are among the entities lobbying for renewals to be done at a more realistic time frame of eight or 10 years, as in other countries.

A decision on that is still awaited, but the transport department in the meantime announced that the machine responsible for producing the current cards will be decommissioned and a new “smart” driving licence card will be rolled out over the next five years.

Scheduled to be introduced in October, the new card will have additional security features including biometric data, holograms and watermarks to reduce fraudulent licences and improve road safety.

Former transport minister Fikile Mbalula said the current driving licence card will be decommissioned on April 1 2024, though the cards will be valid until March 31 2029.

This is to be followed by the introduction of new electronic driving licences (eDLs) over the next three years to 2026 in a bid to reduce the turnaround time of producing and distributing licences. The department said it would prioritise the rollout of virtual cards with the aim of reducing the processing time from 26 to 10 days.

With the eDLs, motorists would have an option to apply for a physical card and digital driving licence that will be accessible through a mobile phone.

Support independent journalism by subscribing to the Sunday Times. Just R20 for the first month.