West Rand residents who wished to attain or renew vehicle and driver’s licences or take their learner’s licence tests at one of the various licensing department stations since Friday, February 25, found the gates closed and people protesting outside.

As of today the licensing centres in Mogale City Local Municipality have been closed for seven working days as a result of ongoing protest action by the National Driving School Association of South Africa (NDSASA).

Read more about the protest action here.

Fred Nel, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Roads and Transport, said in a press release, that the licensing departments of Gauteng will face a major issue at the end of March because of this shutdown and other problems facing them.

“The capacity to issue sufficient renewed driver’s licences in Gauteng is not enough to eradicate the renewal backlog caused by Covid-19.

“During the lockdown in 2020, motorists were not able to renew their driver’s licences and two extensions were granted to renew them. The final deadline for the renewal of licences that expired during the lockdown period is March 31, 2022.

“The Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport has a capacity to renew 173 000 licences monthly. By the end of February we calculated the backlog to be around 423 000 licences that had yet to be renewed, in addition to current licences that will expire.

“Apart from the constrained capacity to renew licences in Gauteng, licensing centres were also forced to close for a week after NDSASA protested against the online driver licence booking system, and forcibly blocked entrances to Driver’s Licence Testing Centres (DLTC).

“It is estimated that 400 000 Gauteng motorists are likely to be faced with a crisis by the end of March as they will be unable to renew their driver’s licences and will face fines for driving without a valid driver licence card. This could also have an impact on their vehicle insurance.

“The introduction of more online transactional services by the Road Traffic Management Corporation can assist in alleviating the pressure on DLTCs in Gauteng, and relieve pressure on the bottlenecks experienced at DLTCs. However, this will not be enough to make the March 31 deadline.

“We call on the Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula, to provide one last extension for the validity of licences that expired during Covid-19 so that Gauteng can deal with its backlog,” Nel said.