Stanger, Salt Rock licencing offices step up

Extra staff have been hired to improve services at the Stanger and Salt Rock motor licensing offices.

Staggering queues, days of wasted time and poor communication are just a few of the complaints from those who have endured the service at KwaDukuza licensing departments.

However, KwaDukuza municipality deputy director of community safety, Sthembiso Zungu, said delays were due to a new licensing system introduced by the transport department two months ago.

Residents had complained that they had been turned away after 40 people had been helped for the day.

Zungu denied this, saying people were given the option to leave and were not chased away.

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“The system which came with a few problems, including being slower. Therefore, we give people the option to either come back another time or wait, with the chance that they may not be served.”

Zungu said in an effort to improve administration and fast-track the processes of renewing and applying for licenses, more staff had been hired. The practice of staff taking their lunch breaks at the same time, despite long queues of people, is said to be a thing of the past.

“To avoid under-utilizing our staff, we now rotate people so we do not have a situation where the staff is unavailable. The issue regarding our staff taking lunch breaks has also been resolved as we cannot allow that residents take days off from work only to have their time wasted. We engaged with the organised labour forums and resolved that staff do not go on break at the same time.”

ATM payment services are also being looked into.

“We want to make things easier but for us to make use of such services, we would need to first get permission from the transport department. They have been a bit skeptical about the service because of card scamming and fraud.”

Meanwhile, at the Salt Rock licensing office, which only offers renewal services, residents were turned away in the past when the only person qualified to use the system was on leave.

“There are now two people who are able to operate the system. Our next step is to renovate the Salt Rock office in phases so that we can introduce the full motor licensing services to the area. We do not have a timeline yet on this issue.”

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