South African motorists could soon see the validity period of driver’s licence cards extended from five years to eight.
The transition from a five-year to an eight-year period has been in the works for some time, and Transport Minister Barbara Creecy has now confirmed that work is being done in the background to complete the transition.
In a letter to civil rights organisation AfriForum, the minister confirmed this, adding that the public will soon be given the opportunity to comment on the preliminary version of the amended regulation.
The organisation wrote to the minister in February, urging her to make her department’s decision known.
In said letter, AfriForum spokesperson Louis Boshoff noted that the sooner the decision is implemented, the sooner the department’s burdens to print new cards will be eased.
The organisation is once again calling for the minister and her department to complete their work, reminding her that the entire country is waiting on the outcome.
“There is overwhelming public support for this decision and much reason to implement it quickly,” said Boshoff.
He added that the Transport Department should not make excuses to delay changing its regulations.
“Every day that the Department takes to complete the process, there are more people whose licence cards expire, but are still fully competent to drive their vehicles safely and responsibly,” Boshoff said.
AfriForum has promised to continue to pressure the Transport Department to complete the transition from five to eight-year licences.
The department has already missed a crucial deadline in the implementation of the longer validity period, as it was still finalising the project’s cost-benefit analysis.
Hlengiwe Ngwenya, the department’s director for strategic planning and monitoring, cast doubt over the extension period when she said the analysis would determine whether or not the validity period would be extended.
“We had a target around the validity period where we had targeted to do consultations on the proposed validity period with the shareholders committee,” she said.
“This is a key document which will inform the decision on whether we proceed with the validity period or not.”
The financial consideration
Early in the year, Minister Creecy explained that the Transport Department would consider hiking driver’s licence renewal fees as a result of the eight-year validity period extension.
She mentioned this in an interview with Newzroom Afrika when she confirmed that South Africa would “definitely” be moving to an eight-year validity period.
Creecy said the department is not rushing the process, wishing to avoid “unintended consequences”.
“Once we make the decision, we should not be in a situation where later we say, ‘Whoops, there were unintended consequences,’” she said.
“But I do hope that this year, this is something we can put to bed once and for all.”
Increasing the validity period will result in less-frequent renewals, which would mean a loss of revenue for the Driving Licence Card Account (DLCA), the entity responsible for producing South Africa’s licence cards.
To offset this loss of revenue, the department is considering increasing renewal fees to cover the difference.
“There could be an implication that there isn’t enough revenue if it’s every eight years, and we may have to increase the tariff,” noted Creecy.
“So, that’s the issue that one is looking at, how we balance what it costs to produce the licence with the fact that we will be giving the public a longer period of time for licence validity.”
This decision has been condemned by the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), which argued that revenue should not be a primary concern for the department.
“Our view is that the government is not in the business of making money. It is in the business of covering costs,” said Outa CEO Wayne Duvenage.
“If you have fewer licences to issue, you will have fewer costs and will therefore need less revenue to cover those costs.”
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