Licence leeway extended – again
Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula has announced a further extension to the grace period for the renewal of driver’s licences while government rolls out a number of measures to improve efficiencies.
“All learner’s licences, driving licence cards, temporary driving licences and professional driving permits that expire during the period that commenced from 26 March, 2020 up to and including 31 August, 2021, are deemed to be valid and their validity periods are extended for a further grace period ending on 31 March, 2022,” Mbalula said yesterday.
The deadline for the end of the grace period for the renewal of driving licences was set for 31 August last year.
The minister said the extension comes into effect from the date of publication of the directions in the Government Gazette.
“Nationally, 1.2 million licences are not yet renewed out of a total of 2.8 million expired licences.
This represents 42.4% nonrenewal, with 57.6% of all expired licences having been renewed,” Mbalula said.
The backlogs at the driving licence testing centres (DLTCs) has been attributed to the onset of the pandemic, which resulted in restrictions and led to the closure of DLTCs.
The previous extensions of the validity period were meant to enable an orderly clearing of the backlog. However, capacity challenges put tremendous pressure on DLTCs in processing renewals of driving licences.
Some of the officials who have been entrusted with the system of online bookings block slots and sell these to those prepared to pay bribes.
In addition, the slow speed and unavailability of the eNatis system has caused problems.
The minister said the faulty live capture units as well as the faulty eye testing equipment have resulted in long queues at DLTCs and there were delays in validating fingerprints as live capture units are not linked to home affairs real time.
“There are many more challenges that have been brought to our attention, to which we are attending with the necessary urgency. Together with the MECs, we have been hard at work in addressing these challenges. “In May 2021, the ministers and members of executive councils meeting adopted an action plan to modernise and turnaround our driving licensing system and licensing centres,” Mbalula said.
Considering that Gauteng poses the biggest challenge due to the large population of motorists and remains the only province that has extensively deployed the online booking system, specific actions have been identified to tackle challenges specific to the province.
“Gauteng has experienced serious capacity challenges, which result, among others, in nonavailability of slots to those who intend to renew their licences. We anticipate it will take four months to clear the backlog.”