The only machine in SA able to print driver’s licence cards has been sent to Germany for repairs and will be back and operational “in the next month or two, maybe even quicker than that if the Germans have already started working on it”.
Transport minister Fikile Mbalula said on Wednesday that he will announce interim measures to handle the backlog of licence renewals and applications “sometime next week” in a bid to deal with the crisis.
In the meantime, drivers wanting to renew or replace their licences can do so only with a set appointment. They are charged an additional R90 for a temporary licence that has to be renewed every six months and then wait for an unknown period because the country’s only licence card machine is broken.
The 20-year-old machine broke down in November. Initial reports were that it would be repaired and operational by the end of December, but this did not happened.
Meanwhile, thanks to an extension granted by Mbalula due to the pandemic lockdown, those whose licences expired after March 26, 2020 have been given until the end of March this year to get them renewed. Estimates by civil society organisations estimate that more than a million people are affected by the backlog.
Wayne Duvenage, CEO of civil rights action group Outa, described the licence renewal process as “a debacle, starting from online queuing, then a failure resulting in backlogs and extension after extension resulting in hundreds of thousands of people unable to get on with their lives”.
“It’s an inefficient system beset by corruption that has us asking: ‘What we are actually paying for?’” he said, referring to the R228 cost of the plastic card.
Our experience at the AA is that people want to be legit. They don’t want to be law breakers or have problems with their insurance. But they are frustrated, aggravated and unhappy. People are going to take chances and drive illegally because they have no choice.
— AA spokesperson Layton Beard
“We have tried to unpack the costs and are left asking why they are making so much money. The department of transport is making millions in surplus, while failing to budget for the repair or replacement of a 20-year-old machine. We have approached them with suggestions and solutions, but they just don’t want to engage with civil society,” Duvenage said, adding that no government department should be fleecing people and making a profit.
The backlog of driver’s licences since the November 7 machine breakdown, which was caused when flooding in an adjacent building caused it to trip and burn out, amounted to 383,000 driving licence cards as of December 1 — a number that will have increased in recent weeks.
This comes on top of the pandemic backlog.
Mbalula in August stated that, nationally, 42.4% or 1.2-million licences had not yet been renewed out of a total of 2.8-million licences that have expired since March 26 2020.
In terms of the extension, all learner’s licences, driving licence cards, temporary driving licences and professional driving permits that expired between March 26 2020 and August 31 2021 “are deemed to be valid and their validity periods are extended for a further grace period ending on March 31 2022”.
“The problem now is that we don’t know what the situation is for people whose licences expired after August, but who haven’t been able to renew them,” said AA spokesperson Layton Beard.
“Our experience at the AA is that people want to be legit. They don’t want to be law breakers or have problems with their insurance. But they are frustrated, aggravated and unhappy. People are going to take chances and drive illegally because they have no choice,” Beard said.
“And we can’t complain when these people get fined, because the traffic officers are only doing their job when they hand you a fine.”
There are difficulties at every step of the process. Up to midday on Tuesday, only five testing stations in Gauteng had available slots — ranging from five appointments in Carletonville to 3,256 in Eco Park Estate, Centurion.
“And that’s another problem. The booking system doesn’t work. You get some people block-booking slots and then selling them out at a premium to people who can’t get an appointment through the eNatis website,” said Beard.
“We’ve been asking what is happening with the rollout of mobile units and extended hours to deal with the backlogs, and hear nothing.”
