Red light on at license office because of office hours
There is money for overtime for traffic awareness during weekends, but no money to open the license office one Saturday a month for motorists to renew their driver's licences.
Motorists in eMalahleni are fed up with trying to renew their driver’s licences or car licences.
For working motorists, it has become impossible to renew licences because the license office is only open from 07:30 until 15:00 from Monday to Thursday and from 07:30 to 11:30 on Fridays.
All types of transactions are done in these hours on a first come, first served basis.
According to Mr Koos Lubcker from the license office, an executive decision was taken on April 12 to not open the license office over weekends because of the municipality’s effort to reduce overtime.
“They do not have money to pay for overtime at the license office, but on weekends there are traffic awareness days all over the city. How must the motorist comply with the law if they are not afforded the opportunity to renew their driver’s licences or car licences,” asked Ms Daniel Grove who had to put in a day’s leave to renew her driver’s licence, only to be told after a long wait that the system is offline.
She was not able to renew her driver’s licence yet.
Another motorist from Ga-Nala, Ms Lisa Vermeulen, said she is furious because all her efforts to get her car’s Natis papers have been in vain.
“From Monday, October 23 to Thursday, October 26 the card machine at the license office in Ga-Nala was offline. On Friday, they closed at 10:00 and we were shown the door. On Monday, October 30 at 14:30 they closed the doors again and blamed load shedding,” Vermeulen said.
Lubcker said he was not aware of the situation in Ga-Nala, “All notices in contradiction to this will be removed as it was not the instruction from management.”
Emalahleni Local Municipality’s media desk reacted to the question of why the license office is not open on a Saturday and said the complaint has been noted and adjustments will be made considering all the facts.
“I am hopeful that the license office will open over weekends, even if it is just one Saturday a month. This will allow us to go and renew our licences since it is never a given that on the day you put in leave, the license office is online,” Grove said.
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