Motorists in South Africa may soon be unable to use their driving licence cards, traffic register number certificates, or learner’s licences as general forms of identification.
Following a major investigation in 2023, the Department of Transport plans to amend the National Road Traffic Regulations to prevent these documents from being used as such.
Conducted alongside the Department of Home Affairs, the investigation uncovered widespread misuse of Traffic Register Numbers (TRNs) and other road traffic documents as forms of identification.
Traffic Register Numbers were created to allow people without a South African identity number to transact on the National Traffic Information System (NaTIS) for road traffic purposes.
According to the Department of Transport, they were never intended for general identification, although the investigation found some institutions accepted TRNs and driving licences as general identification documents.
It added that the practice contravenes the Identification Act of 1998, which assigned Home Affairs as the sole authority responsible for maintaining the National Population Register and issuing identification documents.
The department noted that its proposed amendments are necessary to remove legal ambiguity, prevent abuse and align road traffic legislation with the Identification Act.
Should the amendments take effect, all South African institutions, including banks, airports, offices, and residential estates, will have to review and update their policies and systems.
Once implemented, TRNs, Learner’s Licences, and driving licences will no longer be accepted as forms of general identification.
They will be legally accepted for road traffic-related transactions, while only Home Affairs-issued documents will be valid for identification and verification purposes.
The department will introduce the amended regulations once comments and inputs have been considered and incorporated into a final set of amendments.
The Department of Transport will publish these in the Government Gazette with a commencement date.
In the meantime, provincial Transport Departments have been instructed to centralise the issuing of TRNs at provincial help desks to strengthen controls.
South Africa clamping down on TRN fraud
Earlier this year, Transport Minister Barbara Creecy warned that Traffic Register Number certificates left dormant for 30 days would soon be cancelled as her department looks to curb TRN-related fraud.
The Portfolio Committee on Transport and the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs previously expressed shock that syndicates had infiltrated the TRN system and were abusing it.
“The abuse of the TRN by foreign nationals, a system that is meant to benefit them, is shocking and disappointing,” said the Portfolio Committee on Transport Chairperson, Donald Selamolela.
The two committees heard that nearly a million TRN applications were completed with fraudulent documentation, and that foreign nationals used the non-expiring documents as visa substitutes.
These documents are used to open bank accounts, buy expensive cars, and, in some instances, foreign nationals wrongly use them to justify their stay in South Africa.
“This speaks to the challenge of silo mentality across government departments, and we need to resolve that and get to the bottom of our challenges,” said Selamolela.
“Illegal immigration is hampering our country and pitting poor people against poor people.”
According to the committees, investigations into the abuse of Traffic Register Numbers mostly focused on operations at the Barkly West offices in the Northern Cape.
They were informed that within 20 minutes of a TRN being issued at this particular office, the documentation was duplicated in Cape Town using a single cellphone number to register numerous other TRNs.
The investigations found that Nigerians, Zimbabweans, Somalis, and Ethiopians most frequently abused the Traffic Register Number system
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