{"id":553180,"date":"2022-01-26T07:22:14","date_gmt":"2022-01-26T05:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=553180"},"modified":"2022-01-26T07:22:14","modified_gmt":"2022-01-26T05:22:14","slug":"good-news-for-driving-licences-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/553180\/good-news-for-driving-licences-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Good news for driving licences in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Transport minister Fikile Mbalula has announced that South Africa&#8217;s only driving licence card machine has been fixed and is now back in operation.<\/p>\n<p>In a video posted to social media on Wednesday (26 January), Mbalula said that staff at the Driving Licence Card Account (DLCA) were now working to address the country&#8217;s licence backlog.<\/p>\n<p>Driving licence cards in South Africa are produced by the DLCA \u2013 a national entity that produces these driving licence cards for Driving Licence Testing Centres around the country.<\/p>\n<p>The machine used in the production of the cards broke down in late November and was sent abroad for repairs, leaving approximately half a million South African motorists stuck with expired driving licence cards.<\/p>\n<p>The Covid-19 pandemic has also led to a significant backlog in licences as testing centres were forced to close for several months due to restrictions.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, the department extended the validity period of learner\u2019s licences, driver\u2019s licence cards, temporary driving permits, and professional driving permits that expired between 26 March 2020 and 31 August 2021 to <strong>31 March 2022<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Good morning SA, yesterday I visited the Staff at the DLCA and spent the afternoon with them.<\/p>\n<p>The Licensing Card Machine has been fixed and is in operation. The Staff is pulling Day and Night shift to ensure your License are made and delivered. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/zUaqyvJLlI\">pic.twitter.com\/zUaqyvJLlI<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 FIKILE MBALULA | MR FIX (@MbalulaFikile) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MbalulaFikile\/status\/1486197804376772611?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 26, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>To address corruption and other ongoing licensing issues, Mbalula said his department will officially launch online services at Driving Licence Testing Centres (DLTCs) in February 2022 as part of a revamp of the country\u2019s licensing system.<\/p>\n<p>The launch of online services will significantly improve service delivery and minimise the need for motorists to visit a licencing centre more than once, he said.\u00a0 This will include the option to have your licence <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/550250\/you-will-soon-be-able-to-have-your-driving-licence-card-delivered-to-your-door\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">delivered<\/a> <\/strong>to your place of work or office, he said.<\/p>\n<p>He added that his department is taking a number of steps to digitalise driving licence renewal procedures which will result in a completely paperless experience.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This will include online eye-testing, where the eye test result will be automatically uploaded and linked to the user application.&#8221;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/551806\/south-africa-has-a-massive-driving-licence-backlog-here-are-the-rules-you-should-know\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">South Africa has a massive driving licence backlog \u2013 here are the rules you should know<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Driving licence cards in South Africa are produced by the DLCA \u2013 a national entity that produces these driving licence cards for Driving Licence Testing Centres around the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":428246,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-553180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553180"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":553200,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553180\/revisions\/553200"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}