Panic grows as grace period for renewal of licences expires
Mbombela licensing centre was unbearable due to queues starting in the parking area, and when they eventually opened the doors, the people were uncontrollable.
As the grace period for renewing drivers’ licences has expired, panic has set in, as long queues at the licensing centres are growing even longer.
On Thursday March 31, the licensing centres in Mbombela had long lines that moved slowly due to the large number of people who wanted to renew their driver’s licences before the grace period expired. There were no exceptions for the elderly and people living with disabilities, as they were also expected to queue just like everyone else.
One of those in the line, Tiffanie Strydom, said the crowd at the Mbombela licensing centre was unbearable due to queues starting in the parking area, and when they eventually opened the doors, the people were uncontrollable.
“What hurts me the most is that some of the people gave the officials some money so that they could be allowed inside even though they arrived late. Elderly and disabled people were also forced to stand in the queue instead of being allowed in,” she said.
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Ntando Ngwenya said the queue was only moving four feet after two hours, and he had been coming to the centre for three days, but he was still going back home without getting any assistance.
“I believe the government has enough funds to hire more staff to deal with the high volume of motorists who want to renew their driver’s licence. They must speed up the process of digital registrations, to avoid overcrowding at the centres.”
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Moeti Mmusi, the spokesperson for the Mpumalanga Department of Community Safety, Security and Liaison, said they have enough staff to attend to the masses of people who want to renew their licences.
“We have hired 11 more staff to assist at our centres, and we are aware that when the system is offline, our clients will also be affected, but that is beyond our control. People must also refrain from renewing their driver’s licences on the last day of the expiry date,” he said.
Fikile Mbalula, the minister of transport, stated that motorists who missed the March 31 deadline to renew their driver’s licence cards have until April 15 to do so, and that the backlog of cards currently in the system will be cleared by the end of April.
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