NATIONAL NEWS - With the festive season not far off, the driving licence grinch has made a comeback.
South Africa’s last functioning printing machine has broken down for a second time, which could result in motorists experiencing further delays in getting their licences.
In September, Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula said the Driving Licence Centre Account (DLCA) had produced at least two million driving licence cards to clear the massive backlog that formed when the machine broke down for the first time last year.
The chain reaction to that breakdown led to excruciating waiting times spiking to 58 days, but officials in the transport sector whittled down the queue to just ten days, while over a million motorists were driving with expired licences.
Latest breakdown
The details of the latest breakdown were confirmed by the Eastern Cape’s acting chief director for transport regulations, Xolisa Jakula, to MyBroadBand.
Jakula said efforts to return it to service by the end of the week were underway.
“The machine is reported to have not been working for two weeks now, and there is an indication that processes are underway to ensure that by the end of this week, it is operational.”
Driver licences must be extended
Meanwhile, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has once again repeated calls for driver's licence cards to be extended.
In a tweet, the organisation said there needs to be a solution to the problem.
“Outa repeats our call that the validity of driver's licence cards be extended to 10 years so that the backlog and chaos can be sorted out once and for all, @MbalulaFikile. South Africa’s only driver’s licence card printing machine breaks again.”
