South Africa will still have more than one million motorists with expired driver’s licence cards on April 1, The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has estimated.
Outa, which has called on Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula to extend the deadline for renewals, said the delays in licence processing were a “significant problem” that the government should deal with urgently.
“The state cannot simply ignore this problem, as it will leave motorists at the mercy of overzealous or corrupt law enforcement officers who may use this as an opportunity to extort bribes from the motoring public,” executive director of Outa’s accountability division, Advocate Stefanie Fick said.
“Administrative difficulties and significant backlogs in the renewal process of driver’s licence cards have been the order of the day long before the arrival of the pandemic or the breakdown of the card printing machine at the end of 2021. These problems are largely due to difficulties in securing bookings through the online booking system forced onto motorists,” Fick said.
Outa called on Mbalula to extend the deadline for all expired driver's licence cards to be renewed, and for the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) to engage with Outa and other stakeholders to find meaningful solutions to the problem.
“We already met with Minister Mbalula earlier in March to suggest that the Department of Transport extends the validity period of licence cards from five to ten years. This is in line with many countries and will go a long way to alleviate the administrative pressures on both the state and the public in this regard. We were promised a follow-up meeting in two weeks, but as of today, we are still awaiting the minister’s response to our proposals,” Fick said.
The organisation added that it had also written to Mbalula last week to ask him to consider a further extension of the deadline.
“Should the minister not wish to extend the driver’s licence renewal deadline or the validity of driver’s licence cards, Outa proposes that law enforcement agencies be instructed to not issue fines for motorists whose driver’s licence cards have expired in the past 12 months, as this may lead to unlawful enforcement. The public’s inability to comply with the regulations is largely due to the department's incompetence and the public shouldn’t be punished for it,” she said.
Fick warned that government should not start a war with citizens that it could not win.
“Outa is considering a legal opinion that may lead to another civil disobedience campaign,” Fick said.
