Johannesburg - Transport Minister Dipuo Peters paid a surprise visit to the Springs and Germiston driving licence testing centres on Tuesday – and had harsh words for the staff.
Peters told The Star she had decided to make random visits to testing stations in the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality because of problems within testing stations.
“There are concerns that examiners testing potential drivers are not trained properly,” she said. “We can’t have drivers on the road who have been inadequately tested.”
Corruption within testing stations was something Peters would also tackle with Joburg mayor Parks Tau.
“There are issues of fraud, where people at one (testing) station pay R3000 for a licence and at others R1500.”
Divisional head of licensing Ronnie Molao said the overflow from Joburg affected the turnaround at the stations in Ekurhuleni.
A man at the Springs testing station said he was happy with the service. “It has been pretty efficient and I haven’t had to wait too long.”
But it was a different story in Germiston, where most customers had been waiting for more than three hours .
Problems with disorganised queueing and offline systems were the main concerns.
Peters said she was not satisfied with the service and addressed her concerns to executive manager of licensing Ronald Fillies.
“You’re telling me there is supposed to be a 45-minute waiting time, but people have been waiting for hours. You have to improve!” Peters said.
She apologised to customers for the inconvenience and said it would be tackled.
“There are a lot of lessons to learn here about service delivery,” she said. “We are determined to improve.”
The Star