{"id":643937,"date":"2026-04-29T10:07:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T08:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=643937"},"modified":"2026-04-29T10:10:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T08:10:14","slug":"plan-to-print-driving-licences-in-7-days-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/motoring\/643937-plan-to-print-driving-licences-in-7-days-in-south-africa.html","title":{"rendered":"Plan to print driving licences in 7 days in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Driving Licence Card Account’s (DLCA’s) Annual Performance Plan for 2026\/27<\/a> outlined how it plans to reduce average licence production times to seven working days over the next three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transport Minister Barbara Creecy said the DLCA would achieve its goals for the financial year by addressing backlogs, fixing cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and promptly addressing customer complaints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Annual Performance Plan details how the entity intends to provide the public with high-quality driver’s licence cards printed efficiently within manageable timeframes,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding its production targets, the DLCA set the average number of working days to produce driving licence cards as one of its output indicators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022\/23, it took an average of 23 working days to produce a card. That rate improved to 22 days in 2023\/24 and to 19 days in 2024\/25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DLCA is targeting an average production rate of 21 working days for driving licence cards in 2026\/27, followed by 14 days in 2027\/28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, it aims to reduce production times to an average of seven working days in the 2028\/29 financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DLCA also highlighted production targets over the next three years. It aims to produce 2.6 million cards in 2026\/27 and 2.7 million cards each in 2027\/28 and 2028\/29.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These targets were markedly lower than the production figures the DLCA reported in 2022\/23, when it produced over 3.4 million cards and in 2023\/24, when it produced over 2.8 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, in both those periods, the entity had to ramp up production to address historical backlogs from previous years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DLCA said it had planned to commence with the rollout of a new driving licence card. However, the High Court ruled the tender process was invalid and unenforceable in January 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“With the legal uncertainty now resolved, the DLCA is in a position to refocus its efforts on stabilising the production environment,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This will involve initiating the acquisition of new production equipment to replace the current machinery and to modernise the card production process.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2025 backlog took months to clear<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This acquisition of new production equipment is critical as the DLCA highlighted driving licence printer breakdowns as a key risk to its production goals. However, it does have a backup solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The organisation will proceed with the interim contingency arrangement concluded with the Government Printing Works (GPW),” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This measure provides production support in the event of machine breakdowns, thereby reducing the risk of future backlogs and service delivery disruptions.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said these interventions were anticipated to lay a solid foundation for a more reliable and efficient production environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa’s sole driving licence printer, which is over 26 years old, last broke down in February 2025. By the time it returned in May 2025, the DLCA had accumulated a backlog of nearly 750,000 cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even with extended operating hours at the DLCA, the backlog took months to clear. The DLCA cleared the backlog on 9 December 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New driving licence card contract controversy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After several years and repeated tender withdrawals, Creecy’s department announced it appointed Idemia as the winning bidder to print South Africa’s new driving licence cards in August 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the decision sparked criticism. The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) arranged a meeting with the minister to highlight various irregularities in the tender adjudication process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It submitted a detailed report of its findings, prompting Creecy to instruct the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) to expand the scope of its investigation into the contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One major issue highlighted by Outa’s sources was that the tender’s cost had ballooned from the Cabinet-approved budget of R486 million to R899 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AGSA’s probe also found various problems with the tender adjudication process, adding that Idemia failed to meet key bid technical requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creecy approached the Gauteng High Court for a declaratory order on the way to proceed, and in early January 2026, it declared the tender irregular, invalid, unlawful, and unenforceable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The court instructed the department to re-advertise the tender within 30 days, which it did in early February 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It remains to be seen whether the department will proceed with this contract, as it has already approved a prototype card to be printed by the GPW.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several organisations \u2014 including the Automobile Association of South Africa \u2014 have highlighted the GPW could already have the technical capability to produce the cards, like it does for the smart ID.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Driving Licence Card Account wants to reduce the average time to print a driving licence card from 21 to 7 days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":643971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29366],"tags":[26078,10706,76698,65793,87225,99039,66861,81299,11163],"class_list":["post-643937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-barbara-creecy","tag-department-of-transport","tag-drivers-licence-card","tag-drivers-licences","tag-driving-licence-card","tag-driving-licence-card-account-dlca","tag-driving-licences","tag-idemia","tag-pretoria-high-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643937"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643937"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":644092,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643937\/revisions\/644092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}