With a backlog of 350,000 licences, South Africa’s printing machine for driving licences is finally back in full production, according to the Department of Transport.
WITH a backlog of 350,000 licences, South Africa’s printing machine for driving licences is finally back in full production, according to the Department of Transport.
In May, the department announced that the machine was taken out of production for three weeks to replace a broken part, discovered during routine maintenance, the spokesperson for the national Department of Transport, Collen Msibi, said.
“The testing of the machine after the part replacement took another two weeks before it was certified to go back to full production. This will see an increase in production from the 60,000 cards produced over the past three 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 two financial years. Since its commissioning in 1998 it has printed over 60 million driving licence cards,” Msibi said.
According to Msibi, the backlog was currently at 350,000 cards for the past five weeks.
“Backlogs are dependent on the number of orders received. There is currently a catch-up plan to address the backlog, which will be cleared by end of August,” the department said.
Last year, then Transport minister Fikile Mbalula announced the introduction of new driving licence cards, expected to be piloted from November until March 2024.
At the time, Mbalula said the equipment used to produce the current driving licence cards would be decommissioned on April 1, 2024.
He said there would be a five-year transition period between the old driving licence cards and the new ones.
On this, Msibi said: “The department is currently working on the process to introduce a new driving licence card as approved by Cabinet in August 2022. The new DL card will be launched before the end of the current financial year. It will also bring with it new card production machines to replace the current machine. This signals the new dawn in the DL card environment.”
