Licence fiasco lets taxpayers suffer

Even by the low standards of service from our civil “service”, the fiasco with the issuing of drivers’ licences is shocking.

There is an enormous backlog in the processing of these documents, thanks to a protracted labour dispute in the organisation which prints and then distributes the licence cards.

Despite the fact that the dispute has been resolved and employees in the unit responsible are back at work, there is still a backlog of 90 000 licences waiting to be sent to applicants. The problem is the delays mean that many of those who applied are finding that the temporary licences they were issued – to cover them legally after the expiry of their original documents – are also expiring after six months.

What is infuriating is that those people who haven’t received their licences – through no fault of theirs – must now spend additional money getting another temporary licence.

Failure to do so means that they will be driving illegally, with all that implies in terms of road traffic offences and insurance claims.

Once again, taxpayers are being made to suffer for the incompetence of those in authority.

Why can those temporary licences not be further extended by emergency regulation?

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