Pretoria - The process for motorists to renew driving licences was not smooth enough to eliminate applicants’ frustrations at testing centres.
This was said by the MEC for Public Transport and Roads Infrastructure, Jacob Mamabolo, during an unannounced recent visit to the Temba driving licence testing centre in Hammanskraal.
He conducted a site inspection to audit the processes so as to assist motorists in renewing their licences.
He concluded that the process was not working in the most efficient way. The process did not help applicants understand what the issues were and that led to frustration.
“We will be improving how each one of our facilities is working because clearly the various equipment and technological systems that are being used are not co-ordinated and integrated, and that is causing difficulties.
“For instance, when an application is rejected the applicant does not get feedback on what happened to the application until the day that they come to get information.
“We see many other challenges of technological systems that are not working and are normally down and that impacts on the capacity to service the many applicants who can be seen outside,” said Mamabolo.
The 40 driving licence testing centres in Gauteng were not enough to adequately service the people who needed services. “In this 40, 34 of them are run by municipalities … the way they run and manage the testing centres will not be the same. It means the entire operation process is not being run in a seamless way.”
Mamabolo said that with the massive population needing services daily and Covid-19 impacting the capacity to provide the services, the department had resorted to tightening and strengthening the little capacity it had.
This included the piloting of a priority booking system in which people may approach the department for booking slots as their data was available within the government database.
He called on people who had been given booking slots to make use of that opportunity as there was no guarantee that an extension would be granted.
“If there is no extension and we have given you a slot, you will have no ground to stand on if you miss it.”
Motorists Dineo Mathe and Obed Nkuna said securing a slot to renew a driving licence was the biggest frustration because they were taken up as soon they became available.
Mathe said: “I think one big problem is corruption where some officials are selling these slots for their own gain … those who want to book online wait a long time for dates or find that they are too far from where they live."
Mamabolo said he had appointed Ligwa Advisory Services to tackle the challenges and help punish perpetrators hindering the department's ambitions to build smart institutions.
Pretoria News