As thousands of motorists race against time to beat the cut-off grace period for all expired licences to be renewed, the Gauteng provincial government has committed to increase the number of driving licence testing centres (DLTCs) to meet the demand.
Gauteng MEC for transport and road infrastructure Jacob Mamabolo said only six out of 40 DLTCs are run by the provincial government.
He was responding to questions from DA MPL Refiloe Nt'sekhe during a sitting of the provincial legislature on Tuesday. Mamabolo said they plan to increase the number of DLTCs run directly by the provincial government from the current six to address the high demand of booking slots.
“We must increase the footprint of DLTCs that we have. This is to match demand population and dynamics with the capacity to respond to the service. We do not intend to take DLTCs away from municipalities but we want to increase the number of DLTCs we have at provincial level. We are partnering with the RTMC and Gautrain Management Agency. We want to create a new generation of DLTCs so that we address the issue of the number of slots because with the current 40 there is no way we can meet the [demand] that is there,” said Mamabolo.
“The first big problem we have is that out of the total number of 40 DLTCs that we are running in the province, about only six of them are run by the provincial government and the remaining 34 by municipalities. And in that six, the Kliptown one is not working because it was looted. DLTCs across municipalities are not run the same. The level of investment by municipalities in these DLTCs is not the same,” said Mamabolo.
“Mostly to make a booking it can take two to 25 minutes. When you get a booking you can be given a slot anywhere in the province. So a person in Hammanskraal can get a slot in Sedibeng (the Vaal region). And you would have to travel that distance because slots are made available to people where they are available on the system. However, in every residential area in most areas, you shouldn’t travel more than 30 minutes at most to reach a DLTC. DLTCs are fairly available although the population dynamics challenges us.”
He said the average time a person with an appointment can be assisted at a licencing department is between 30 to 120 minutes.
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