• The driver’s licence card machine is being repaired again, leading to delays in licence renewals and now licences being issued.
• The Department of Transport is now handing out temporary licences due to the delays.
• Efforts from the department to launch smart licences have hit a major roadblock.

South Africans are once again facing delays in getting a renewal for their driver’s licences as the sole 26-year-old machine that can produce the licences for the entire population of South Africa has encountered issues and is undergoing maintenance and repairs.

This is according to a statement from Department of Transport spokesperson Collen Msibi issued late last week, who added that, “the department is exploring various interim solutions to sustain the operations of the current machine, given its age.”

While the machine is being repaired, applicants awaiting the renewal of their driver’s licence are now being given temporary licences to counteract delays. The sole machine in South Africa is prone to breakdowns, leading to huge delays.

This latest example has many South Africans calling for the driver’s licence validity period to be extended from five years to 10. Countries like New Zealand, the UK, Brazil, Ireland, Italy, Russia, and more have licence validity periods of 10 years, while countries like the US allow for up to 12 years in some states and in India, the period can be as much as 20 years.

In 2023, the Department of Transport revealed that there was a backlog of printing new driver’s licence cards, for renewals and otherwise of up to 350 000 cards. This was after the machine had broken down again.

“The testing of the machine after the part replacement took another two weeks before it was certified to go back to full production,” the department said at the time.

“This will see an increase in production from the 60 000 cards produced over the past 3 weeks during the testing period to about 120 000 cards per week. The machine has printed an average 2 850 000 cards per annum in the past 2 financial years.”

South Africans can expect similar delays in the renewal of their driver’s licence cards now as the machine is undergoing another bout of maintenance. The department said it was working on launching brand new “smart” driver’s licence cards “before the end of the financial year.”

These cards would have a new look to the existing cards, but after two years, South Africa is yet to see them. This is because Barbara Creecy, the Minister of Transport, called for an investigation into the contract that was drawn up by the department to facilitate the new cards, including a nearly billion Rand partnership with a French company called IDEMIA.

The investigation found many irregularities, which are now heading to the high court in order to throttle the contract.