By: Natasha Archary
Transport Minister, Fikile Mbalula will on Friday provide motorists with an update with regards to driver’s licence renewal extension.
With the deadline for licences renewals since the Covid-19 backlog ending on Thursday, 31 March, more than 1 million drivers will have expired licence cards.
Mbalula gave motorists a grace period during the lockdown, and any licences that were to expire between March 2020 and August 2021 will be valid until 31 March 2022.
However, due to the Motion of No Confidence vote in parliament on Wednesday, the update of a further extension will be made on Friday, 1 April.
OUTA and the AA are calling for a further licence renewal extension due to the recent strikes at licence centres, the delay in getting the printing machine fixed and no available bookings.
“Given the recent problems with the production of driving licence cards, and issues around Driving Licence Testing Centres (DLTCs) and online booking systems, we believe it’s unrealistic to expect that this enormous backlog will be cleared by tomorrow; this leaves hundreds of thousands of drivers without the necessary documents to be on the road legally. Unless traffic law enforcement understands these issues – and finds a suitable way of addressing them – we may find a massive spike in the number of traffic fines issued to motorists in the next couple of weeks and months,” notes the AA.
UPDATE ON LICENCE RENEWALS: We will on Friday, 01 April 2022 provide an update on the deadline for the Extension of Licence Validity.
— ANC SECRETARY GENERAL | Fikile Mbalula (@MbalulaFikile) March 31, 2022
Today’s planned media engagement was postponed due to cabinet commitments. 🙏🏾 pic.twitter.com/iNdLilSAoR
Also read: DA loses motion of no confidence against Ramaphosa and cabinet



