Licence card machine back in full operation
The driver’s licence cards backlog should be complete by the end of August.
The National Department of Transport confirmed that the machine which prints driver’s licence cards is back in operation.
This news followed the department’s May statement advising that the machine was out of production for three weeks to replace a broken part identified during maintenance.
Tests on the machine after replacing the part took another two weeks before it was certified to go back into production. This saw the production increase from the 60 000 cards produced during the testing period to about 120 000 weekly.
The machine has printed an average of 2 850 000 cards annually in the past two financial years. Since its commissioning in 1998, it printed over 60 million driving licence cards.
The backlog is at 350 000 cards for the past five weeks and depends on the number of orders received. There is a catch-up plan to address it, and it should be complete by the end of August.
The department is working on introducing a new driving licence card, as approved by Cabinet last August. They expect the new cards to launch before the end of this financial year. The new cards come with a new production machine to replace the current one.
