Thursday is the last day for South African motorists to renew their expired driving licence cards without facing a penalty despite a backlog, with more than half a million expired licences in the system.
The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) and the Automobile Association is again appealing to Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula to reconsider government’s refusal to extend the grace period.
The mounting backlog was caused by the hard lockdown in 2020 as well as a breakdown of the country’s only licence printing machine last year.
The minister has remained steadfast that the grace period will not be extended beyond the end of March.
The Automobile Association’s Layton Beard has described the hundreds of thousands of drivers on the roads illegally as a crisis.
Outa’s Wayne Duvenage agreed, adding that it was unrealistic to expect that this enormous backlog would be cleared by Thursday.
Meanwhile, motorists who applied to renew their license cards before Thursday’s deadline will be legally on the roads for a further three months.