Chaos erupted at Kempton Park Licensing Centre on Monday last week when angry customers forced open a gate to gain entry to the premises.
Having waited outside the centre for hours without service, tempers flared up at around 11.30am and the gate was pushed off its rail.
Staff inside the offices locked themselves inside with hundreds of people waiting outside.
A Boksburg resident, who was in line a fifth time to fetch his new driver’s licence, waited since 8am only to discover his licence was still not there at around 3.30pm. He applied for his licence on July 17 last year.
A 72-year-old pensioner told Express the department was in total disaster.
“Who takes responsibility here. As a 72-year-old pensioner among other old age citizens, who can we turn to? The so-called internet booking system does not work. Where to from here as I am now forced to drive illegally with an expired licence?”
According to the City of Ekurhuleni, the woes experienced at Kempton Park Licensing Centre are not unique to Kempton Park.
Ward councillor Jaco Terblanche spent a week at the centre and reiterated the problems were not as a result of staff at the centre not doing their work. It comes from a provincial level.
“With the introduction of the new online system, the province never looked at the capacity of centres, as well as how to deal with walk-in customers,” said Terblanche.
He believes the system should be area-restricted to lessen the burden on specific centres. The local centre was built to accommodate 150 people a day and cannot cope with the current high numbers.
He advises customers to have their eye tests done privately before going to the licensing centre, as this will save a lot of time.
Themba Gadebe, spokesperson for the metro, said the strike at the Driver’s Licence Card Authority (DLCA) last year still has an effect on service delivery.
The DLCA prints the driver’s licence cards. Applications are just processed at station level and submitted to the DLCA for printing and issuing thereof.
“There was a strike by workers of DLCA that affected all municipalities. It was a labour dispute that was outside our jurisdiction as the company is a stand-alone authority,” Gadebe said.
“The backlog on printing and delivery of licence cards is ongoing. When batches of cards are delivered we file them accordingly for collection.”
Gadebe also mentioned the new online booking system introduced by provincial government as a factor slowing down service.
“This system allows applicants to apply through the internet by booking a date and time to be tested. However, the majority of applicants still prefer to do walk-in bookings and this creates unnecessary delays and stretches queuing time.”
On January 2 and 3, the Telkom lines were offline and that automatically affected the Live Enrolment Unit system (LEU). On January 4 at about noon, Telkom technicians arrived to investigate the problem, which was resolved. At 1pm Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) technicians arrived to resolve the LEU machine problems.
Gadebe said from January 2-4 all online bookings for renewal of driver’s licences were served.
“We assisted people at the Road Worthy Certification (RWC) side which runs on a 3G line that is not part of the whole system. On January 7 all services returned to normal, notwithstanding the challenges related to the DLCA.
“The office assisted about 250 customers on renewal applications on January 7 and 8. On driver’s and learner’s applications, about 150 customers were helped, and about 600 customers were assisted on card collections.
Residents who have already applied for a new driver’s licence and need to find out whether Kempton Park Licensing Centre has received it can call Terblanche on 083 413 2420 for assistance.
