With South Africa’s only licensing card machine being broken – again – the DA calls on Transport Minister, Fikile Mbalula, to urgently speed up the introduction of a new licensing card for South African motorists.
When the machine broke down last year November it took two months to repair, creating a massive backlog of more than 380 000 unrenewed licenses. As it stands the country’s license card machine is outdated and apparently the only one of its kind left.
In the beginning of the year Minister Mbalula said that he will introduce a new card machine that is on par with the rest of the developed world and a new driving license card from October 2023. In September Cabinet approved the replacement of the current driving license card with one that has more secure design features.
We now call on the minister and the department to speed up this process to ensure that motorist don’t face another backlog and risk of being fined.
As a further possible solution, the DA also suggested to the Portfolio Committee on Transport that provinces should manage and administer the applications and issuing of the new cards.
The eNatis system would coordinate information nationally on the central database system but appointments, applications and issuing should be decentralized. This will reduce the risk of having to rely on one machine and a singular staff component.