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New driver’s license card printer disappears two days before deadline-Andre Smit
Less than two days before South Africa’s new driver’s licence cards are supposed to be introduced, there is still no sign that the printer that will produce it has been installed or even arrived in the country.
Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga announced that the machine will make the first batch of 900 new cards by the end of April during a press conference on the closure of e-tolls in Gauteng earlier this month.
“We are at the end of the procurement process because the team engaged in it had to travel to France to see the machine itself,” Chikunga said.
“Before the end of this month, we will print new driver’s licenses [cards] and will introduce at least the first 100 per province, as we said. We’re moving in that respect.”
The printer will be used by the department’s Driver’s License card account department to produce new driver’s license cards that boast enhanced security features, including biometric data, holograms and watermarks.
The cards will be in line with the International Information Technology Personal Identification Adequate Driving License (ISO18013) standard, which better protects them from counterfeiting and modification.
In addition, they will support keeping more data, allowing easier use in other countries.
The tender document for a manufacturer of the new cards was first published in November 2021. However, it has since been advertised and withdrawn numerous times.
After several delays, the department planned to complete the procurement of the printer that can produce the new cards by the end of 2023.
The timeline of the end of April for their launch is already a month later than promised by former transport minister Fikile Mbalula.
In September 2022, Mbalula announced that the new map would be launched from 1 November 2023 to 31 March 2024.
The final expiration date for the old card was supposed to be March 31, 2029, corresponding to the current validity period of five years.
Chikunga suggested that the cards could be postponed in January 2024, when she told TopAuto that the department had not yet awarded a tender for the new printer.
“Delays in completing this evaluation process were mainly caused by the complex nature of this bid itself, along with the fact that the evaluation criteria also included a mandatory site inspection process as part of due diligence,” the minister said.
The department has yet to confirm that the new printer has arrived in South Africa.
With less than two days to go before the end of April, it looks like the Department of Transportation will miss another of its own deadlines.
Faster production turnaround – but no backup
The current license card printer is more than two decades old and has struggled to keep up with demand in recent years.
According to SABC News, the new printer will produce cards faster than the current printer, with the turnaround from successful application to delivery shortened from 14 to 5 business days.
While a new printer is expected to outperform the old machine, it won’t resolve its concerns about redundancy in the event of a breakdown.
The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) and Democratic Alliance (DA) criticised the department’s use of a single machine in one place to print all cards and called on the government to purchase several machines to print the new cards.
The department defended this approach as an anti-corruption measure.
However, without any backup printers, serious technical problems can again become a major headache for South African motorists.
The machine had a two-month breakdown from late 2022 to early 2023 after a power surge.
Because of its older design, its restoration required expertise and equipment available only in his country of origin – Germany.
In that case, the backlog climbed to more than 1.3 million at one point and took months to resolve after the machine came back online.
The machine was only back online for about three months before it was taken back into line for “routine maintenance,” identifying a problematic part that required another six weeks of downtime.
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