Good news for anyone applying for a new driver’s licence card in South Africa

Transport Minister Barbara Creecy has announced that South Africa’s driving licence card production backlog has been reduced significantly.

The backlog stood at 746,748 in May 2025, and is now down to around 200,000 – an improvement of almost 75%.

However, while significant progress has been made, at this rate, the backlog will still only be cleared by early 2026.

The Department of Transport is in the process of establishing a back-up system for the printing of driving licence cards, after signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the Goverment Printing Works (GPW) in July 2025.

At the time, Creecy said that the backup device should be ready within three months, meaning it would go online in October 2025.

As the end of the month now approaches, the Department of Transport is reportedly ‘close’ to establishing this backup solution, should the current printer fail yet again.

Creecy said on 24 October that she had received the prototype temporary cards from the GPW, but there are still security issues that need to be dealt with before the GPW can start producing the cards.

Questions have been raised over whether the GPW should become the permitted licence card producer, rather than a temporary backup.

New card printing machine

Meanwhile, the Department of Transport’s solution to the constant breakdowns of the current driving licence card printing machine was to secure a new machine.

This process has encountered several setbacks. First, Idemia, the company that originally won the tender to procure a new machine, was found to be at fault with the application process.

The Department of Transport has approached courts to have the R898-million contract with Idemia be overturned, and cited multiple reasons for this:

• Bidder non-compliance and weak documentation.
• An almost-R400 million cost escalation from the Cabinet-approved budget of R486 million to the signed contract of R898 million.
• Use of outdated pricing.
• Exclusion of printing material costs.
• Evaluation errors in scoring and machine assessments.

As a result, the procurement of a new driving licence card printing machine has been put on hold.