New driving licence card printer missing in action two days before deadline

Less than two days before South Africa’s new driving licence cards are supposed to be introduced, there is no sign yet that the printer that will produce them has been installed or has even arrived in the country.

Transport minister Sindisiwe Chikunga announced that the machine would make the first batch of 900 new cards by the end of April during a press conference on the shutdown of e-tolls in Gauteng earlier this month.

“We are at the tail-end of the procurement process, because the team that is busy with that had to travel to France to see the machine for themselves,” Chikunga said.

“Before the end of this month, we will be printing new driving licences [cards] and will launch at least the first 100 per province, as we have said. We are moving in that regard.”

The printer will be used by the department’s Driver’s Licence Card Account division to manufacture new driving licence cards boasting improved security features, including biometric data, holograms, and watermarks.

The cards will be aligned with the International Information Technology Personal Identification Compliant Driving Licence (ISO18013) standard, which better protects them against counterfeiting and modification.

In addition, they will support holding more data, allowing for easier use in other countries.

Sindisiwe Chikunga, Minister of Transport

The tender document for a manufacturer of the new cards was first published in November 2021. However, it has been advertised and withdrawn numerous times since then.

After several delays, the department had planned to complete the procurement of the printer that could produce the new cards by the end of 2023.

The timeline of end-April for their introduction is already one month later than former transport minister Fikile Mbalula had promised.

In September 2022, Mbalula announced the new card would be piloted from 1 November 2023 to 31 March 2024.

The final expiry date for the old card was supposed to be 31 March 2029, aligning with the current five-year validity period.

Chikunga suggested the cards could be delayed in January 2024, when she told TopAuto that the department hadn’t yet awarded a tender for the new printer.

“Delays in concluding this evaluation process have been occasioned mainly by the complex nature of this bid itself, coupled with the fact that the evaluation criteria also included a compulsory site inspection process as part of due diligence,” the minister said.

The department has yet to confirm that the new printer has arrived in South Africa.

With less than two days before the end of April, it seems the Department of Transport will miss another one of its own deadlines.

Faster production turnaround — but no backup

The current licence card printer is over two decades old and has struggled to keep pace with demand over the past few years.

According to SABC News, the new printer will produce cards faster than the current printer, with the turnaround from successful application to delivery shortened from 14 to 5 business days.

While a new printer is expected to perform better than the old machine, it will not solve its concern over redundancy in case of a breakdown.

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) and Democratic Alliance (DA) have criticised the department’s use of a single machine at one location to print all cards and called on government to procure multiple machines to print the new cards.

The department has defended this approach as an anti-corruption measure.

Without any backup printers, however, serious technical issues could again become a major headache for South African motorists.

The machine suffered a two-month breakdown from late 2022 to early 2023 after a power surge.

Because of its older design, its repair required expertise and equipment that was only available in its country of origin — Germany.

In that instance, the backlog climbed to over 1.3 million at one point and took months to resolve after the machine came back online.

The machine was only back online for roughly three months before being taken offline again for “routine maintenance”, which identified a problematic part that required another six weeks of downtime.