Illegal driver’s licence syndicates running wild in South Africa
Despite recent arrests, syndicates continue unashamedly selling driving licences on social media platforms.
This is according to an investigation by the Sunday Times, where it posed as a parent looking to purchase a driver’s licence for their son.
In this investigation, a Facebook advertiser was selling a learner’s licence for R1,200 and a code 14 licence for R7,000.
A scout, who identified himself as Mr B, connected the undercover journalist to a traffic official in Soweto, who then contacted the journalist and identified himself as “Mr T Maleka”.
Maleka claimed to be a traffic department official who could help with a driver’s licence.
He told the “customer” that the learner’s licence would be written by someone else and guaranteed a licence test pass — registered on the system to be completely legal.
The prospective customer was then asked for the following details:
- Applicant’s name
- ID number
- Two photographs
- Address
- Nearest traffic department
- Payment of R2,000 — to be made either by e-wallet or a transfer into a “head office account.”
It was not clarified what this “head office account” referred to.
After the Sunday Times revealed itself to Maleka, he continued his sales pitch.
The Sunday Times contacted three other providers and was offered a legitimate licence without having to do the test in each case.
South Africans frustrated with official methods
Ironically, this eagerness to help illegally stands in stark contrast with attempts to attain a driver’s licence through legal means.
MyBroadband recently called eight Home Affairs offices and six driver’s licensing offices in Gauteng, and not one of the officially listed numbers was answered.
We even tried using different SIM cards — one on the Vodacom network and one on the MTN network — to ensure that the calls were not affected by network challenges.
Between these fourteen offices, we could find sixteen different numbers — 11 for the eight Home Affairs offices and 5 for six licensing centres.
Only six of these numbers even rang, and none were answered.
We also searched for unofficial, alternative numbers for these departments using Google Maps, and found new numbers for three licensing centres.
Akasia and Centurion licensing centres both had unofficial numbers that were answered by City of Tshwane services, while Waitloo’s number rang, but was unanswered.
Card machine woes
This is far from the only obstacle to getting a driver’s licence in South Africa.
The country’s only card printing machine has stopped working multiple times in recent years, and each time this causes a backlog.
Most recently, Driving Licence Card Account acting head Kagiso Kgosiemang revealed the machine had been out of action for four weeks beginning 16 September 2022.
“With the repair of the components, we lost two weeks. That was unscheduled. However, the other two weeks, as I have said, was always scheduled maintenance,” Kgosiemang said.
This scheduled maintenance is because the machine is quite old, and must be taken off production from time to time for software and hardware maintenance.
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