South Africa getting new driving licence cards that take four days to make

The Department of Transport (DoT) says South Africa’s new driving licence cards will take four days to produce and return to motorists and will feature a backup system in case of machine breakdowns.

Speaking to Newzroom Africa, DoT spokesperson Collen Msibi explained that the current system and machine aren’t used anywhere else in the world, making it difficult to find replacement parts.

It has also suffered several breakdowns in recent years, resulting in significant delays to renewal applications.

“We’ve had to ask the cabinet of the sixth administration to have these new cards, mainly because the technology we’ve been using to print the old cards is very old,” said Msibi.

“If you’d recall, there’s been a lot of breakdowns with the machine that we’ve been using.”

“The old machine has printed over 60 million cards since 1998. With the new system, we’re hoping the turnaround time for people receiving their cards will be cut very short,” he added.

He said the new card will have improved security features and far shorter production times.

“This is the modernisation of the driving licence system. The new card will have more security features, which will make it quite difficult for anyone to have a counterfeit card,” said Msibi.

“We are looking at about four days, and you will be having your card. It’s one of the issues that we’ve been looking at.”

While the DoT will have a “proper backup system” for incidents where the system goes offline, it won’t have a driving licence printing machine in each province.

“There’s this notion that each and every province will have its own machine. It’s not going to be like that. Why? Because of the issue of corruption and security,” said Msibi.

“The difference this time around is there’s going to be a proper backup system in case there are breakdowns or maintenance of the system.”

Msibi said motorists will still need to visit Driving Licence Testing Centres to apply for and renew their driving licence cards.

When asked about a fully digital system, he said, “We are not quite there yet. I think we have to wait a bit.”

Msibi also reiterated that the validity period of driving licence cards will remain five years. However, he suggested that things could change with the new administration.

“There’s a transition which has happened. We have got a Government of National Unit (GNU) which must make its own decisions,” he said.

“We await with bated breath what the next decision of the GNU will be on the matter, but I can tell you at this point, we are still at five years.”

South Africans have been waiting for an announcement regarding the procurement of a new driving licence printing machine, with the DoT seesawing on a launch date.

Former transport minister Sindisiwe Chikunga said the tender process for procuring a new machine was almost concluded in April 2024 and that it would start printing at the end of the month.

However, it was revealed in June that the DoT had only then shortlisted five bidders and had yet to adjudicate the tender.

The DoT finally announced on Monday, 2 September 2024, that it had appointed a preferred bidder for the contract.

It selected Idemia Identity and Security South Africa to produce new driving licence cards for the country’s motorists.

Idemia will first enter a service-level agreement with the DoT before establishing the relevant infrastructure and systems.

It added that it would make more information regarding timeframes available to the public once the service agreement has been signed.

The tender process has taken over a year. The DoT opened applications in April 2023 and closed them a month later.