The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has called on the transport minister to extend the deadline for expired driving licence cards or risk “starting a war” with motorists.
Outa estimates there will be well over 1-million motorists with expired driving licence cards after March 31, the deadline set in August 2021 by minister Fikile Mbalula to deal with backlogs.
All learner’s licences, driving licence cards, temporary driving licences and professional driving permits that expired between March 26 2020 and August 31 2021 were deemed to be valid until the end of March.
Mbalula has ignored previous calls to extend the grace period despite recent protests at driving licence testing centres (DLTCs) causing further delays. The department of transport last week said it was on track with the production of outstanding licence cards, and that the bottleneck experienced between November 2021 and January 2022 due to a broken licence printing machine would be cleared by April.
However, Outa warned that the government should either extend the deadline or stop issuing fines to motorists with expired licences, lest it “start a war with citizens that it cannot win”.
“Outa is considering a legal opinion that may lead to another civil disobedience campaign,” Outa’s Stefanie Fick said.
“The state cannot simply ignore this problem, as it will leave motorists at the mercy of overzealous or corrupt law enforcement officers who may use this as an opportunity to extort bribes from the motoring public.”
“Administrative difficulties and significant backlogs in the renewal process of driver’s licence cards have been the order of the day long before the arrival of the pandemic or the breakdown of the card printing machine at the end of 2021. These problems are largely due to difficulties in securing bookings through the online booking system forced onto motorists,” she said.
Outa met Mbalula earlier in March to suggest increasing the validity period of licence cards from five to 10 years to help alleviate the administrative pressures.
“We were promised a follow up meeting in two weeks, but as of today, we are still awaiting the minister’s response to our proposals,” said Fick.
Last week, Outa wrote to the minister to consider a further extension of the deadline, saying: “Should the minister not wish to extend the driver’s licence renewal deadline or the validity of driver’s licence cards, Outa proposes that law enforcement agencies be instructed to not issue fines for motorists whose driver’s licence cards have expired in the past 12 months, as this may lead to unlawful enforcement.
“The public’s inability to comply with the regulations is largely due to the departments incompetence and the public shouldn’t be punished for it.”
Last week, the transport department said motorists who applied to renew their driving licence cards before March 31 would have their driving licences valid for a further three months on condition that they were in possession of their old driving licence cards. They must also have proof of fees paid for the application to renew in a form of a receipt.
The regulation also applies to motorists who applied to renew their driving licence cards since February 25 and before the end of the grace period of March 31. Their driving licence cards will also be valid for a further three months.
Those applying after the expiry date will be required to apply for a temporary driving licence.
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