Pretoria - Gauteng is set to add 10 new Driving Licence Testing Centres to address the backlog faced by motorists to renew their driving licence cards.
This comes as MEC for Public Transport and Roads Infrastructure Jacob Mamabolo announced that he just recently gazetted the Gautrain and the Roads Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA) as licensing authorities to assist the 40 overloaded Driving Licence Testing Centres in the province.
With 1.2 million licences not yet renewed out of a total of 2.8 million expired licences nationally, Gauteng plans to establish four licensing centres at the kiosks of Gautrain stations, four in unused spaces in government buildings in addition to the two in RTIA offices in Midrand and Centurion.
Mamabolo revealed these measures of intervention before showcasing the new Driving Licence Testing Centre at RTIA offices in Midrand where he also officially launched the Request a Slot campaign as another option for motorists to receive slots to renew their cards by sending emails to request to be given an appointment to go and renew their cards within 30 days from the moment they sent their request.
The new Driving Licence Testing Centres use a technology system that is linked to the data held by the Department of Home Affairs to make queues run smoothly and eliminate older processes like bringing ID photos and waiting for a while for fingerprints to be scanned and confirmed.
He said linking the system to the Department of Home Affairs database is the game changer that will not only modernise the processes but significantly reduce the time motorists will have to spend in queues. The department is also on a mission to have eradicated the backlog by the end of March next year.
"On Monday I issued a government gazette in which I was notifying the public that the Roads Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) is appointed as a licensing authority and we have also gazetted that the Gautrain Management Agency is also a licensing authority.
"You will see before the end of the year we will add four more Driving Licence Testing Centres at a provincial level and we will gazette them publicly as well. These are going to be at our regional offices at the Department of Transport. We have a lot of space there that is not utilised. They will be run in partnership with the RTMC.
"With the Gautrain now announced as a licensing authority it means we will also announce the addresses of the Gautrain Management Agency kiosks that will be located at the stations. Gautrain is a transport node where many motorists park their cars to take trains. The people that we need to renew their licences pass through the Gautrain facilities," said Mamabolo
He said the Gautrain Management Agency was currently busy setting up the kiosks, which meant that by the end of the year the Gauteng government would have added 10 new Driving Licence Testing Centres that will operate seven days a week between 7am and 9pm on a two shifts system to address the backlog.
Pretoria News