Licensing issues blamed on national system
MBOMBELA - The Department of Community Safety, Security and Liaison (DCSSL) has spoken out regarding the state of Mbombela’s licensing departments.
Earlier this year, all the licensing departments in the City of Mbombela were transferred from the municipality to the DCSSL’s jurisdiction. In his budget and policy speech on June 10, MEC Vusi Shongwe stated that the licensing function would be one of the department’s five programmes in the upcoming fiscal year. The department allocated R157 353 000 to this programme, which it has labelled "administration".
“Some employees at the affected driver's licence testing centres opted to remain behind. The posts that were created out of that will be filled in due course, because they have been advertised,” said Shongwe in his speech.
A majority of the issues affecting the service at licensing departments are linked to the national system, rather than a provincial issue. “When the system is offline, applications cannot be processed. The challenge is not only in the province, but other provinces are experiencing the same predicament,” said the department’s spokesperson, Moeti Mmusi, in a statement.
The national lockdown last year created an backlog that licensing departments all over the country are struggling to address. In an attempt to address the backlog, transport minister Fikile Mbalula announced that learners' licenses, driving licence cards, temporary licence cards and professional driving permits that expired from March 26 to December 31 last year, would be deemed valid until the end of August.
The DCSSL has stated that Mpumalanga is the leading province in terms of dealing with the backlogs.
In a statement sent to Lowvelder by the DCSSL, the department points to the systems going offline and says it has little control over this. “The Live Enrolment
Unit is used for eye testing for licence applications; it constantly goes on and off. This is mainly due to upgrades being carried out on the system,” said Mmusi.
Another major obstacle has been a glitch in NaTIS; the system alerted applicants that their licence cards were ready when the system had in reality only starting printing the cards. People then reported to licensing departments only to be sent away empty-handed.