Pretoria - The Department of Transport has announced that the driving licence card production machine was back in full production amid a 350 000 licence backlog.
The printing of new driver’s licences cards was halted because the machine was faulty and needed urgent attention.
The machine is the only printing machine in the country and needed to be taken out of production for three weeks in order to replace a broken part identified during routine maintenance.
In a statement released on Sunday the department said the backlog was currently at 350 000 cards. Spokesperson Collen Msibi said the backlogs were dependent on the number of orders received.
“There is currently a catch-up plan to address the backlog, which will be cleared by the end of August.”
Msibi added that the testing of the machine after the part replacement took another two weeks before it was certified ready to go back to full production.
“This will see an increase in production from the 60 000 cards produced over the past 3 weeks during the testing period to about 120 000 cards per week. The machine has printed an average 2 850 000 cards per annum in the past two financial years. Since its commissioning in 1998 it has printed more than 60 million driving licence cards.
“The department is working on the process to introduce a new driving licence card as approved by the Cabinet in August 2022. The new card will be launched before the end of the current financial year. It will also bring with it new card production machines to replace the current machine. This signals the new dawn in the driving licence card environment,” he said
Last year, Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula announced the introduction of new driving licence cards, expected to be rolled out from November until March next year.
At the time Mbalula said the equipment used to produce the current driving licence cards would be decommissioned on April 1, 2024.
He said there would be a five-year transition period between the old driving licence cards and the new ones.
Pretoria News