Gauteng should be getting new number plates by the end of 2025, if everything goes according to plan.
The Gauteng Department of Transport (GDoT) has been promising the new plates for well over a year, but the project has been delayed multiple times and is only expected to reach the public in late 2025.
TopAuto reached out to the GDoT for an update on the project, but did not receive a reply by the time of publication.
What the new plates will look like
Gauteng’s new licence plates have still not been revealed to the public, but the GDoT has shared a few key details about what they will look like.
The plates are expected to keep the same alphanumeric (letter and number) combination as the outgoing designs, but will incorporate new features intended to help with crime prevention in the province.
Number plate cloning is a big problem in South Africa, and Gauteng plans to combat this phenomenon by adding a new QR code to every plate issued in the province.
The QR code will be linked to a national vehicle database, which should make it much harder to forge duplicate plates that won’t be picked up by the authorities.
Alongside the QR code will likely be the national flag, which is replacing the provincial emblem found on the current examples.
According to the GDoT, the alphanumeric system is not being changed because the current format (AA 11 AA GP) has sufficient codes to last until 2038.
Once this system is exhausted, Gauteng will likely have to add an additional numeral to the code or adopt a different format entirely.
A design for the new plates that shows all of these elements was published in a 2015 Government Gazette, which noted that the current model is prone to abuse by unregistered plate manufacturers.
Under the new system, every motor vehicle, as well as the manufacturer of said plate fitted to that vehicle, should be accounted for thanks to the new QR codes.
The same system could eventually be applied to the number plates in all nine provinces, too, but for now, it appears that Gauteng is set to pilot the new design.
A series of delays
Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi first announced in his State of the Province Address in February 2023 that the province would be getting new number plates with tighter security features to combat criminal activities.
This was followed by an update in July 2023 from the Gauteng MEC for Transport and Logistics, Kedibone Diale-Tlabela, stating that the registration process for vehicle licence plate manufacturers had been officially opened.
Two months later in September 2023, the GDoT declared that it would roll out the prototypes for the new plates in October of that year, but this never happened.
Another update was provided in November when Dr. Thulani Mdadane, head of the GDoT, announced that Gauteng could expect to receive its new vehicle identifiers before the end of 2023.
Obviously, this didn’t come to pass, and the province changed its response in February 2024 when Lesufi confirmed that the new plates would arrive on the 1st of April.
The most recent update was issued in August, when MEC Kedibone Diale-Tlabela declared that a prototype number plate recognition system had been developed and would start to be rolled out as part of a pilot programme within the next six months.
This is nearly a year after the GDoT first said they would implement the prototype plates, and the six-month timeline means the pilot programme will likely only come into effect towards the end of the current financial year.
The prototype number plate recognition system trial phase will then need to run for several months before the province can sign off on the new plates and start handing them out to the public, meaning they will likely only make an appearance in late 2025, if not later.
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