Traffic dpt chaos: AA and Outa warn road users will be forced to break the law

While Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula on Thursday met the organisation responsible for the current chaos around driver’s and car licences, The Citizen spoke to people who know how to sort it out.

And minister, you should listen. While you’re consulting the same people who broke the system, experts said the whole system is an issue.

This included an ineffective online booking system, broken eye testing and fingerprinting machines, corruption, poor services and people unable to secure bookings.

According to the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), the minister needed to introduce lasting and effective solutions to problems related to capacity, system and electronic issues to combat corruption and also increase workers at the driving licence testing centres (DLTC).

“Some of the things we want him to do is fix the online booking system by removing the disability or people in the backend who block bookings or fill up slots quickly so that nobody can get them,” said Outa chief executive Wayne Duvenage.

The process of renewing or just getting a driving licence, has hardly improved since the card was first introduced in 1999.

Outa and the Automobile Association (AA) said they wanted the minister to address the possibility of extending the validity period of licences from five to 10 years, which was the most important thing.

AA spokesperson Layton Beard said: “We hope the minister is going to introduce lasting and effective solutions to problems related to driver’s licence renewals.

“What we want to see is practical steps that are going to be taken to increase the capacity at the DLTC’s in terms of the IT infrastructure, the finger print machines, eye testing machines and the latest interface.”

The Road Traffic Management Corporation previously acknowledged a backlog of at least 500 000 licences.

However, even though they recognised the system’s unreliability when it comes to vehicle owners details, they have continuously used the ever-failing system for renewals.

“There are major problems with the online booking system in Gauteng, which is now being tested in KwaZulu-Natal and that needs to be addressed,” Beard added.

“People are frustrated because they cannot get any slots, we need to interface, in other words com puters need to communicate the latest database and that’s why the improvement of the IT infrastructure is really critical.”

With the looming licence renewal deadline and thousands of motorists who have not yet managed to renew their driving licences, the AA and Outa have warned that many people will be forced to break the law.

– reitumetsem@citizen.co.za