Licence renewal deadline extended to 2022 as govt continues to battle backlog
Motorists battling to renew their licences can breathe a sigh of relief.
The Department of Transport has announced that the deadline to renew licences has been extended to the end of March 2022.
Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula made the announcement on Friday.
Mbalula admitted the sector is battling a massive backlog.
"Nationally, there are 1.2 million licences not yet renewed out of a total of 2.8 million expired licences. This represents 42.4% non-renewal, with 57.6% of all expired licences having been renewed.”
Gauteng accounts for 44.6% of the non-renewals.
Mbalula said the reasons for the backlog include faulty infrastructure and corruption.
"We are, however, more concerned about the reasons that give rise to this situation, which include the following: capacity challenges which put tremendous pressure on DLTCs in processing renewals of driving licences; corruption of officials entrusted with the system, where online booking is used, who block slots and sell these to those prepared to pay bribes.
"Slow speed and unavailability of the eNatis system causing frustrations for officials and motorists renewing their licences; faulty live capture units resulting in long queues at DLTCs, faulty eye testing equipment, delays in validating fingerprints as live capture units are not linked to Home Affairs’ real time," he said.
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