Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga has made assurances that the new drivers license machine will be procured on time. The new driving license cards are to be rolled out at the end of the month.
This is after the current card printers have been bogged down with technical issues over the past few years, leading to intermittent breakdowns and inevitable backlogs of drivers license cards.
Minister Chikunga says they are at the tail-end of procuring a new printing machine for the license cards.
We are at the tail end of the procurement process because the team that is busy with that had to travel to France to see the machine themselves, so I wouldnt want to get into that. But I can tell you now, that before the end of this month, we will be printing driving licenses and we will launch the first 100 per province.
Meanwhile, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuses (OUTA) Executive Director for Accountability Division, Stephanie Fick, says the delay by the Department of Transport to redesign the drivers license card is concerning.
Fick says the department has not been transparent with motorists on the issuing of the new cards.
The drivers license issue has been a contentious issue, its the issue of how transparent the department has been with motorists on the issue. We know the card machine has given everyone headaches, at some point they were behind with printing the cards, so it was good news that they are looking for a new system and extending validity of license cards but now we are far down the road and we still dont know where we are."
