A new round of concerns has been raised over Gauteng’s new number plates and their costs.
These concerns are led the civil action organization AfriForum, which lodged an internal application with the Gauteng Department of Transport for it to answer questions.
AfriForum lodged the application following the department’s failure to respond to its Protection of Access to Information Act (PAIA) application within the required 30 days.
“AfriForum insists that the provincial department must disclose the proposed cost and associated re-registration costs of these number plates,” it said.
This includes disclosing the time frame that motorists will have to replace their old number plates.
Louis Boshoff, AfriForum campaign manager, has noted that with more than three and a half million vehicles in Gauteng, the department will need to manufacture seven million new number plates.
He emphasised that the department isn’t willing to disclose how much it will cost to produce this many new number plates.
Boshoff also questions Premier Panyaza Lesufi’s claim that these new number plates will improve road safety.
“As long as criminals can get away with driving without number plates on their vehicles, it will make no difference how good the required number plates are,” he said.
“So, the solution lies in better law enforcement — not new gimmicks.”
AfriForum has requested the department’s research to support this claim from Lesufi.
A R1,000 headache for motorists
Lesufi first announced the plan to launch the new number plates in February 2023 during his State of the Province Address, indicating the scheme would assist law enforcement in cracking down on undocumented vehicle crime.
He repeated this statement in June 2025, noting that fraudulent number plates and cars without proper documentation are at the centre of crime in Gauteng, especially kidnappings, robberies, and murder-for-hire.
“Criminals use undocumented cars to commit crimes. We are now ready to launch tamper-proof new number plates,” he said.
Following this, the scheme was introduced to provincial government vehicles, with the department stating they planned to extend it to the rest of Gauteng’s vehicles by December 2025.
However, Lesufi stated that this will require every vehicle to be registered and get a new registration number – a claim that critics of the scheme have challenged.
This includes the South African Vehicle Rental Leasing and Fleet Management Association (Savral), which stated that the requirement was unsupported by the National Road Traffic Act.
Another raised issue is why a re-registration is even necessary, given that the new system uses the same alphanumeric format as the current plates.
There is also the issue of cost.
It currently costs R216 to register a new vehicle and R120 for applications for motor trade late numbers.
The new registrations in Gauteng will require a new license disc that costs R408, excluding the R72 administration fee charged by the Road Traffic Management Corporation.
Current plate prices range between R400 and R500; however, the new plates will likely cost more.
This means the new registration process will most likely cost over R1,000.
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