The backlog, which sat at 747,500 at the start of May 2025, was amassed following the machine breaking down and being offline since February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Civil action group Outa previously noted that the printer can only process between 14,000 and 19,000 cards in a 14-hour shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It would thus take <\/strong>40 to 53 days to clear that backlog, it said\u2014excluding the addition of any new card applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With only about 14,500 of the backlog cleared up so far, it is clear that the department still has a very long way to go, and applicants still have a very long time to wait.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n South Africa\u2019s current licence card printing machine is 26 years old and has now experienced at least 160 breakdowns in its lifetime, which have become more frequent with age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the department, the machine had been offline for a total of 38 working days in 2025 alone following similar outages between 2022 and 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over that period, the machine had been out of service for 129 working days in total, showing the bulk of the failures have been happening more frequently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Repairs have cost the department R12 million, and about R4.4 million in overtime has been paid out to make up for the lost processing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Making matters worse, the country’s plan for new printing machines has been put on ice, pending a declaratory order from the country’s courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The country has attempted to overhaul its licensing regime by turning to new, updated and more secure cards with additional printers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among the proposals under the new tender was procuring three driving licence card printing machines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new machines would also be maintained and repaired in South Africa, unlike the current machines, which must be shipped overseas for repairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the tender process has been a mess, with a R900 million contract awarded to a company, only to be pulled into an Auditor General (AGSA) investigation over irregularities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In March 2025, Transport Minister Barbara Creecy announced that she had instructed her department to lodge a high court application for a declaratory order on the tender award, for guidance on how to proceed in the light of the AGSA findings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The department said the order on the tender process is so that no further irregular expenditure occurs However, this order has not yet been received.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stakeholders like Outa have proposed that other measures be put in place to mitigate the constant failures of the machine and the likely drawn out tender process for a new one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This includes extending the validity of licence cards to 10 years, or moving towards a digital driving licence regime. Both proposals have been rejected by the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Outa has accused the department of rejecting these proposals in favour of the current system and validity period due to the revenue it generates for the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The backlog forms another ‘incidental’ pool of revenue as the department has urged applicants to apply for temporary licences while they wait, which comes at an additional cost for drivers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" South Africa’s plans to get more licence card printers are on ice, while the backlog of applications has barely been dented. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":817846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[18243,21683,22742],"class_list":["post-826635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-driving-licence","tag-driving-licence-card-account-dlca","tag-licence-card"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826635","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=826635"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":826648,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826635\/revisions\/826648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/817846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Plans for new machines are on ice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/creecy.jpg\")
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