Pretoria - Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula has announced that South Africa’s last functioning printing machine for driver’s licences is now back in service, and the race is on to clear the backlog.
In a tweet, Mbalula said the machine’s latest hiccups were linked to power outages.
“Drivers Licence Machine Update. The machine is up and running on the 24/h shifts cycle. We planned to meet the demand and kill the backlog. The machine had challenges due to power outages,” said Mbalula.
In January, Mbalula confirmed that the “old and outdated” machine had broken down and was undergoing repairs in Germany.
Drivers Licence Machine Update: The machine is up and running on the 24/h shifts cycle we planned to meet the demand and kill the backlog. The machine had challenges due to power outages. pic.twitter.com/AfRa7eW2gw
The machine’s absence from service caused a major backlog for driver’s licences.
Last month, Mbalula said the Driving Licence Centre Account (DLCA) had produced more than two million driving licence cards to clear a backlog that had formed when the machine broke down for months.
On Thursday, Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) chief executive Wayne Duvenage told Newzroom Afrika that the machine had been down for about two weeks in the latest breakdown.
“We gather the machine was down two weeks ago. It had been down for two seeks, so we first heard about it a lot later. This machine is very old now, and the new machine, the budgeting thereof, and the plans have been there for three years, and nothing has happened. This is a very, very old machine. We should be a long way down the line, probably operating the new machine by now, which has new security features in it. Yet, here we are, to this day, having to deal with an old machine that keeps breaking down and creates more backlogs and so forth,” he said.
“I’m pleased that it’s fixed and running again, but when is it gonna break down again?”
In September, Mbalula announced that South Africans could expect new smartcard-like driver’s licences from next year and that the current licence would be decommissioned on April 1, 2024.
The new driving license cards would be valid for 10 years.
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