• The Department of Transport has been attempting to get a new driver’s license production machine into South Africa since 2022.
• Now the department says that it is finalising a bidding process to bring new equipment to produce the cards.
• South Africa only has one driver’s license card producing machine, whose maintenance can cause backlogs of 300 000 cards or more.

South Africa’s Department of Transport says that it is “on track” to deliver new equipment and machinery that can print new driver’s license cards for the country’s motorists. Infamously, the entire country’s cards emerge from a single machine.

In 2023, this machine required important maintenance and received repairs for just under a month, in which time a backlog of over 350 000 cards emerged after maintenance was completed.

Now in June 2024, the department says that initial challenges led to delays in the search for new, suitable equipment to produce driver’s license cards as well as for suitable providers of that equipment. The problem is that the department is looking for a solution that can immediately be plugged in and start producing cards.

It has been looking for a company to produce a new driver’s license card machine since receiving approval from Cabinet for it in 2022.

“With the evaluation and adjudication of the bids completed, the Department is almost at a brink of pronouncing a new dawn in the driving licence card environment, with the audit process being the only last hurdle standing in the way,” the department now says in a press statement.

It used the same turn of phrase “a new dawn” in 2023 as well. That year the department said that it would launch the new card machine before the end of the financial year, which it failed to do.

The bid process has been a lengthy one and was initially unsuccessful. After being advertised in May 2023, the department now has five bidders:

• Ren-Form Corporate Print Media (local),
• NEC XON systems (local),
• Muehlbaer ID Services (Germany),
• Gemalto Altron Fintech (local),
• Idemia Identity and Security (France).

With three local suppliers and two international firms looking to produce driver’s licenses in South Africa, it is now up to the completion of the bidding process to find a suitable partner from the five bidders.

It is now waiting for the evaluation and adjudication process for the winning bid to be completed as it cannot finalise the bid until this process is finalised. “The Department pleads for patience as it is prohibited by law not to poke its nose into the affairs of the bidding committees,” it added.