The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has called on Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula to consider changing the driver’s licence (DL) renewal process from five to 10 years.
“This should save the SA consumer and government time and money as well as improve the administration and manageability of the renewal process by the state,” says Dominique Msibi, portfolio manager in the organisation’s public governance division
Among others it proposes that the extension apply to people between the ages of 18 and 65, and that more efficient online application processes for renewals precede the actual renewal to allow for more effective service delivery and flow between appointment, eye test and licence delivery.
Outa also suggests that multiple methods for DL renewal be made available through test centres and reputable service providers, i.e. stronger collaboration with neutral, third party organisations such as the Automobile Association of South Africa (AA). It also believes that current restrictions applicable to Professional Drivers’ Permits either remain the same, or are possibly extended as well.
“The state is facing a growing crisis of legitimacy in its inability to address the backlog of DL renewals, which appears to be getting worse, not better. This in turn is spilling out into a crisis of administrative challenges that has the potential for citizens to be deemed as not acting ‘outside the law’ when driving without a licence due to the state’s inefficiencies. The extension of the grace period for an ‘expired’ DL is becoming the norm. We believe there will be no adverse impact on the lives of South Africans in the case of extending DL renewal to 10 years,” Msibi adds.
In its research, Outa compared the South African process of DL renewals with best practice internationally.
