Bad news for South Africans who need a new driving licence card

South African drivers face delays in getting ‘smart’ driving licences as the procurement of new printing machines is stuck in limbo, and the government has shot down other solutions.

The Department of Transport (DoT) has faced an uphill battle procuring new driving licence cards for South Africa.

The saga seemed to be heading to a conclusion in 2024, only to be derailed by an investigative process into awarding the tender for three new printing machines.

The Auditor General of South Africa concluded its investigation at the end of January 2025 and handed over its findings to the DoT.

The DoT said it was still processing the findings and would soon release new recommendations. Regardless of the outcome, however, South Africans face more delays.

If the Auditor General’s findings recommend that the department start the procurement process from the beginning, there will likely be another delay in issuing the new cards.

Should the recommendation be that the department proceed with the winning service provider, civil action group Outa has warned that this will likely lead to litigation, bringing further delays.

South Africa has depended on a single printer for decades to produce its driver’s licence cards. With the machine, one card takes an average of 14 working days to complete.

This inefficient process and the printer’s advanced age have led to frequent malfunctions and breakdowns—159 to be exact—resulting in a significant backlog of licence renewal applications.

The backlog of licence renewal applications in South Africa reached a peak of 1.3 million between 2022 and 2023.

To tackle these challenges, the DoT issued a tender for new, faster machines that could produce more cards daily and improve the security features of the cards.

The plan was to decommission the old printer and license cards by 31 March 2024. Cabinet approved the production of a new driving license card for the country on 30 August 2022.

However, this hit various stumbling blocks, including the investigation mentioned above and calls to shut down the entire tender process and start again.

Licence validity extension failure

While procuring new machines will improve turnaround times and make licence card issuing more efficient, two other solutions have been proposed that the DoT has taken nowhere.

The first solution, which seemed to gain traction before falling flat, was to extend the validity of driving licence cards from five years to at least eight.

This solution was said to be making its way to the cabinet for approval by then-Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula, but his successor, Sindiswa Chikunga, swiftly waved it away.

Chikunga later revealed that the proposal had never been presented to the cabinet.

Research commissioned by the department supported extending licence card validity to eight years, finding that the average renewal period across 35 countries was 8.5 years.

The research report proposed that driving licence cards for light vehicles in South Africa be valid for eight years instead of the current five years, while those for heavy vehicles remain at five years.

Despite being supported by research, the DoT ultimately decided to keep validity at five years for “health reasons.”

In 2024, the DoT told BussinessTech that “the timeframe of license validity is partly informed by the health and wellness of license holders.”

“This includes eye tests, which are able to determine the deterioration of a driver’s vision and if a necessary restriction needs to be listed on an individual’s license,” it said.

Other reasons cited for keeping the validity period at five years were concerns about durability—but this has since also been proven false, with many licence cards hitting over 10 years and still being in good condition.

Digital licences shot down

Another solution to address South Africa’s persistent driving licence card printing problems is introducing a digital driving licence.

Critics of the government’s delayed tender processes and bizarre reasoning for not extending licence validity have called for driving licence cards to be replaced with digital versions that never expire.

This suggestion even became a point of discussion in parliamentary committees.

The National Council of the Province’s Public Infrastructure Committee raised the question of digital licences in November 2024 when discussing the issues surrounding the delays in procuring a new printing machine.

Committee chair Frederik Badenhorst inquired about the progress on digital licence cards, which could be a viable alternative to dealing with a card printer that always breaks down.

However, the Department of Transport effectively shot this down, saying it is not currently government policy.

The department said that procurement processes are guided by government policy, and while there is no opposition to the digitalisation of documents like driving licenses, this is not currently part of the established policy framework.