The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) said it is concerned at how the government continues to spend millions of Rands maintaining its only driving licence card printing machine and the costs to catch up with backlogs. 

The organisation said this is concerning because the government has been talking obtaining about a new licence card machine for the past 10 years. 

This was after Transport Minister, Barbara Creecy, revealed that the machine had been out of service for 38 days since April 1, resulting in a backlog of 733,000  licence cards. 

Creecy disclosed this in response to a written parliamentary question from Rise Mzansi leader, Songezo Zibi.

Zibi asked how many times the machine had broken down in the past three financial years, including since the start of the 2025/26 financial year. 

He also wanted to know how much had been spent on repairs during this period and how much overtime had been paid to employees due to lost printing time as a result of the breakdowns. 

Creecy revealed that the machine was broken for 26 days in the 2022/23 financial year. In 2023/24 it was broken for 48 days. It was also broken for 17 days in 2024/25. 

The department paid R9,267,862 for the repair and maintenance in 2022/23. It paid R1,651,772 in 2023/24,  R544,747 in 2024/25, and R624,988 so far, totaling R12,089,370,64.

The department also had to fork out R4.4 million for overtime payments between the 2022/23 and  2024/25 financial years. 

Creecy said it takes four people to operate the machine.

She said she has directed that a declaratory order be sought from a competent court on the tender to acquire a new machine, in order to ensure that no further irregular expenditure occurs. 

In March, Creecy announced that she had instructed her department to lodge a High Court application for a declaratory order regarding the licence machine tender -awarded to Idemia and Security South Africa. 

Her decision was influenced by the findings from the Auditor-General (AG) report, which identified instances of non-compliance with the required procurement procedures. 

Outa’s chief executive officer, Wayne Duvenage, said the organisation was also concerned by the length of time it takes for the department to get the court to nullify the contract – riddled with irregularities and potential corruption. 

“Why does it take so long to get this process done?” he asked. 

“Lots of money spent on maintaining and overtime costs to catch up with backlogs. This is very concerning. The government has been talking about a new driving licence card machine for about 10 years now, with multiple tenders awarded and cancelled for the past 5 years and still, we are nowhere near resolving this issue. Incompetence and political interference at its best,” Duvenage said. 

Department of Transport spokesperson, Collen Msibi did not respond to a request for comment.

In a statement released on June 4, Rise Mzansi MP, Makashule Gana, said: “What is of great concern is that between 2022/23 and 2025/26 (to date) the printing machine has been offline for 129 days, with repairs and maintenance costing in excess of R12million. The recovery of this lost time has further cost the people of South Africa over R4 million in overtime.”

“It is clear that the old, single printing machine has become a financial burden on the department and the people of South Africa. RISE Mzansi therefore calls on Minister Creecy to urgently provide a public update on the declaratory order, having announced the process three months ago,” he said.

manyane.manyane@inl.co.za

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