Africa-Press – South-Africa. The department of transport has turned to the department of home affairs for help as it continues to face challenges with its only driver’s licence printing machine.
With the procurement of a new system tied up in a court battle, transport minister Barbara Creecy said her department has asked home affairs to help develop a temporary solution.
This comes after delays in the issuing of new smart driver’s licence cards after the auditor-general’s finding that there were several irregularities in the tender process for a new printing machine.
Creecy filed a high court application seeking a declaratory order on the tender process.
In an interview with Sowetan on Thursday, Creecy said her office this week met home affairs, which confirmed that a prototype machine was in development.
“We are running that [transport department] machine day and night. We can be clearing the backlog, but as we are clearing the backlog, [people’s] licences are expiring. So it is a never-ending cycle,” she said.
“We went to home affairs and we said, ‘Can you help us?’ and home affairs said, ‘Yes, we can help’.
“The department had a meeting with home affairs two days ago, and they have said that they are busy producing a prototype, and once they are done, we have to take it to [the] state security [agency] for approval because a driving licence is a form of identification.”
Creecy said the two departments had agreed that the process would not take more than three months.
The transport department’s printing machine, which is more than 25 years old, has repeatedly broken down, resulting in huge backlogs.
In February, the machine was out of operation, which resulted in a backlog of outstanding cards to be printed. According to the department, on July 5 the backlog stood at 602,831 cards.
Gauteng was leading with 192,856, followed by the Western Cape with 86,862, and KwaZulu-Natal with 85,313. However, between May 8 and July 7, the department managed to process 515,758 cards.
“If you have a driver’s licence that expires now, you have six months in which to get your permanent licence,” Creecy said. “There would be a lot of people in the queue whose six months is up, so we have said they cannot be penalised because this is not of their making. So people must keep their receipts of when they applied, then they can’t be fined.
“Also, they do not have to apply again. A lot of people have temporary licences, but now those licences are expiring again. But they don’t have to apply again because that would be unfair. So we have waived that provision.”
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