Sorry, no slip for your disc
You won’t be getting the usual licence reminder in your post box (unless you live in Cape Town)
IS your car licence up for renewal? If so, don’t expect a notification via the post — as has been the norm for the past 20 years — because the post office bill for sending out such notices has not been paid. So, while the Department of Transport concludes “a payment regime of outstanding fees”, notices will not be sent.
How much is owed, and how long it will be until the impasse is resolved, is anyone’s guess.
HAD it not been for a colleague bemoaning the “new” car licence renewal process, I’d very likely have paid penalties for the first time in my motoring life.
So, too, I suspect, could a large chunk of South Africa’s roughly nine million car owners, as clueless about the issue as I was.
And why wouldn’t they be? It seems no official countrywide notification has been given to motorists warning them that a system in place for the past 20-odd years is no more.
Simply put, when it comes to the annual renewal of your car’s licence disc, you’re now on your own. Motorists can’t expect a renewal notice — complete with all relevant registration and VIN numbers et cetera — to arrive in the post.
And why not? Because the post office bill for sending out such notices hasn’t been paid. So while the Department of Transport concludes “a payment regime of outstanding fees”, notices won’t be sent.
How much is owed and how long it’ll be until the impasse is resolved is anyone’s guess. I tried repeatedly to get a time frame from the department, to no avail. I also asked when this problem had been communicated to motorists, but got no response.
All spokesman Ishmael Mnisi could do was “take this opportunity to apologise to all South Africans for the inconvenience”.
He said the department had engaged the services of the post office through a third party, with which it (the department) had been in dispute.
“As a result, there were delays in the payments to the post office for the delivery of renewal notices to motorists,” said Mnisi.
He advised motorists to “continuously monitor” disc expiry dates and use the provisions of the 21-day grace period to make their annual payments.
Which means motorists caught driving with expired discs are not going to be let off the hook, despite the nonpayment blunder. After the standard 21-day grace period following expiry date lapses, you will be charged a tenth of your licensing fee for every month it remains lapsed. And then, of course, there’s the possibility of a fine if caught on the road with an expired disc.
Turns out the department is not obliged by law to send out reminders; it has done it all these years as a courtesy.
Law or not, it’s been the norm for the past two decades. And considering motorists weren’t told of the problem, the lack of leniency seems a little meanspirited.
Interestingly, the department didn’t mention to me that if you’re a Cape Town motorist, you’re (largely) unaffected. When city officials there were told notices wouldn’t be coming through for a while, they moved quickly to make another plan.
Said executive deputy mayor Ian Neilson: “The city took over the responsibility of sending out renewal notices following the failure of the responsible national agencies to do so since October last year.”
Since February, the city has sent out more than 100 000 notices in bulk to the post office to be delivered to residents, and is carrying the cost.
“We could not allow a continuation of the discomfort experienced on an operational, reputational and customer service level,” said Neilson. “We have done our utmost to come up with creative solutions to soften the impact on our residents and motorists.” Lucky for some. Howard Dembovsky, national chairman of Justice Project South Africa — a nonprofit company focused on the prevention of corruption in law enforcement and the promotion of road safety — confirmed that the Road Traffic Management Corporation, which received R36 on each eNatis national traffic information system transaction processed and had traditionally sent out reminders, wasn’t legally bound to do so.
But even though it was the responsibility of a motorist to ensure that their driving and vehicle licences were valid, he said, the road traffic authority’s tradition for the past 20 years of sending notices had caused the public to become used to receiving these reminders.
“To suddenly stop doing so without any announcements cannot be ignored,” said Dembovsky.
But he isn’t surprised that the issue has been “kept secret”.
“It is inconceivable that gov- ernment departments and agencies which are given so much money could fail to pay other state institutions like the post office, but clearly it does happen and when it does, nothing is said until hard questions are asked — either in parliament or by the media. This is a very sad situation and is unfortunately indicative of the general breakdown in much of the service delivery and good governance which has become typical in South Africa.”
For those who missed the other change, it’s equally significant. A new regulation of the National Road Traffic Regulations effective since November last year means motorists must now provide identification along with proof of residence when renewing. (See box for renewal requirements)
The department said the purpose of this was to update eNatis to ensure that registered drivers got their renewal notices and other road traffic notices “promptly and timeously”. How ironic. Tune in to Power 98.7’s “Power Breakfast” (DStv audio channel 889) at 8.50am tomorrow to hear more from Megan
The department is not obliged by law to send out reminders; it has done it all these years as a courtesy