Africa-Press – South-Africa. The Department of Transport says it does not yet have a clear path forward for procuring new driving licence card printing machines for South Africa.
This means that the process remains delayed and the country will continue to rely on the sole printing machine that is decades old and tends to break down.
Responding to a parliamentary Q&A this past week, the department also noted that the backlog of cards that need to be printed is sitting at 733,000 cards.
The backlog has only been reduced by 14,500 cards since the printing machine came back into operation at the start of May.
The backlog, which sat at 747,500 at the start of May 2025, was amassed following the machine breaking down and being offline since February.
Civil action group Outa previously noted that the printer can only process between 14,000 and 19,000 cards in a 14-hour shift.
It would thus take 40 to 53 days to clear that backlog, it said—excluding the addition of any new card applications.
With only about 14,500 of the backlog cleared up so far, it is clear that the department still has a very long way to go, and applicants still have a very long time to wait.
South Africa’s current licence card printing machine is 26 years old and has now experienced at least 160 breakdowns in its lifetime, which have become more frequent with age.
According to the department, the machine had been offline for a total of 38 working days in 2025 alone following similar outages between 2022 and 2024.
Over that period, the machine had been out of service for 129 working days in total, showing the bulk of the failures have been happening more frequently.
Repairs have cost the department R12 million, and about R4.4 million in overtime has been paid out to make up for the lost processing.
Plans for new machines are on ice
Transport Minister Barbara Creecy is waiting on the courts for a way forward.
Making matters worse, the country’s plan for new printing machines has been put on ice, pending a declaratory order from the country’s courts.
The country has attempted to overhaul its licensing regime by turning to new, updated and more secure cards with additional printers.
Among the proposals under the new tender was procuring three driving licence card printing machines.
The new machines would also be maintained and repaired in South Africa, unlike the current machines, which must be shipped overseas for repairs.
However, the tender process has been a mess, with a R900 million contract awarded to a company, only to be pulled into an Auditor General (AGSA) investigation over irregularities.
In March 2025, Transport Minister Barbara Creecy announced that she had instructed her department to lodge a high court application for a declaratory order on the tender award, for guidance on how to proceed in the light of the AGSA findings.
The department said the order on the tender process is so that no further irregular expenditure occurs However, this order has not yet been received.
Stakeholders like Outa have proposed that other measures be put in place to mitigate the constant failures of the machine and the likely drawn out tender process for a new one.
This includes extending the validity of licence cards to 10 years, or moving towards a digital driving licence regime. Both proposals have been rejected by the government.
Outa has accused the department of rejecting these proposals in favour of the current system and validity period due to the revenue it generates for the government.
The backlog forms another ‘incidental’ pool of revenue as the department has urged applicants to apply for temporary licences while they wait, which comes at an additional cost for drivers.
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