How long it could really take to clear South Africa’s licence backlog

At current production rates, it will take over 11 months for South Africa to clear the backlog of expired driving licence cards that have piled up, a MyBroadband analysis has shown.

This is five months longer than transport minister Fikile Mbalula’s ambitious goal of printing all outstanding licence cards by September 2022.

The backlog exists because motorists could not renew their licences during much of the Covid-19 lockdown, and the Department of Transport extended the expiry date of millions of licence cards until March 2022.

South Africa’s only driving licence card printer also broke down in November due to a power surge caused by flooding in a building adjacent to the Government Printing Works.

Kevin Kara-Vala, executive manager of Road Traffic Information & Technology at the Road Traffic Management Corporation, stated that their estimates show they must print 2.9 million cards by September 2022.

While the backlog at the end of January was 2.1 million, the number of cards that need to be printed would increase by an average of 100,000 per month between February and September.

He also stated that the Driver’s Licence Card Account (DLCA) team had produced 128,000 cards after the driving licence card printing machine was repaired in Germany and resumed production on 20 January.

DLCA is the Department of Transport division responsible for printing driving licence cards.

Its current production rate works out to approximately 260,000 new cards a month.

According to Mbalula, the DLCA can produce 400,000 new cards a month, allowing it to clear the backlog by September.

DLCA employee next to the driver’s licence card printer

However, according to the DLCA’s annual performance plan for 2021/22, the machine hasn’t produced that many cards before, and the forecasts for 2022/23 and 2023/24 show a maximum rate of 208,000 cards per month.

The performance plan showed that the DLCA would produce 1.2 million cards — or 100,000 cards a month — in the 2021/22 financial year.

It would never catch up at that rate because the motorists applying for new licence cards every month would equal the number of cards they could produce.

For 2022/23, the DLCA said it would produce 2 million cards. That works out to a rate of 167,000 cards per month. At that rate, it could catch up by September 2024.

In the 2023/24 financial year, the DLCA aims to produce 2.5 million new cards at a rate of 208,300 cards per month. It would clear the backlog by March 2023 at that production level.

The table below provides estimates of when the transport department could clear the backlog based on varying production rates.

Mbalula’s claim that the machine can produce 400,000 cards per month would mean it would run at almost twice the speed planned for the 2023/24 financial year.

This raises the question — how long will the machine last without breaking down at that production rate?

MyBroadband reached out to the Department of Transport for comment on this question, but it had not responded by the time of publication.

Another congestion point is the number of slots available for motorists to visit a testing centre to renew their driver’s licences.

Democratic Alliance spokesperson for transport in Gauteng and the provincial chair, Fred Nel, said around 140,000 driving license renewal slots are available in Gauteng until the end of March.

However, over 500,000 drivers in the province still need to renew their licences by then.

“The maths indicate a disaster looming. Try outside the province if you cannot get a slot in Gauteng,” Nel advised.

Mbalula has announced that South Africa will be getting a new driver’s licence card and printing machine as the current one is over 20 years old.

However, a pilot programme for the new machine is only expected to launch in October 2023.

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