The Department of Transport wants to "kill queues" and corruption
Doing admin is never an enjoyable experience, but the Department of Transport is hoping to make things a little easier.
Taking a trip to the Home Affairs office or the Department of Transport is not usually a trip that one looks forward to.
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In fact, you could even say that most people try to avoid it as much as possible and only end up there when there is no other option.
Some of the most common reasons for this universal avoidance behaviour is consistent technological errors, finding an available date for taking a driver's licence test, but the biggest irritation of all, the queues.
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But setting aside a whole day for your mission to the Department of Transport could, in the future, be a thing of the past.
Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula recently delivered his budget vote speech and addressed many of the main concerns that surround driving licence test centres (DLTCs) and the services the public receives from these centres.
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There is a long list of measures that the department is looking to implement with the hopes of improving many different services.
According to MoneyWeb, here are some of the new improvements the department want to complete within the next few years:
1. New driver's licence cards
After his speech, Mbalula confirmed that they are launching and rolling out a new driver's licence card soon, possibly before the end of the year.
The new licence card will meet the International Organisation for Standardisation's requirements that are acknowledged globally and look like the new identification document cards.
This will also allow the department to embed new security features on the card and will be made by the state.
The old (existing) one, which is laminated, is much easier to forge and in country like ours, the fraudulent acquisition of licences has been rife in the past and security features and technology available to the public is advancing at a rapid pace. State organisations have to ramp up security features to make sure that we are ahead of the curve of what the public can potentially produce. The assessment now is that the current licence can easily be forged with what is now available on the market,” he said. “The inks are not that highly specialised and are now readily available to the market.
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They are hopeful that the process will be approved by cabinet before the end of June 2021 with the roll-out plan kicking off right after and production starting by the end of this year.
2. Longer operating hours
3. Technology to eliminate queues
We expect to roll out kiosks and mobile units. All of this will be happening in record time in the next coming weeks.
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4. Online interface for eye tests
Instead of waiting in a queue for hours just to find out you have 20/20 vision, they are looking to introduce an online interface where medical practitioners and optometrists can upload eye test results. This means motorists can go to the optometrist of their choice for the test.
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5. End corrupt booking of DLTC slots
There seems to be a lot of illegal things happening when it comes to the booking of DLTCs slots, especially in Gauteng, and although they have not revealed their plan of action, they are planning on tackling this as well.
These are just some of the measures the department are hoping to employ in the coming months in order to streamline the various entities that fall under its umbrella that include Road Traffic Management Corporation, the Road Traffic Infringement Agency, and the Driving Licence Card Account trading entity.
Considering that the DLTCs were flung into even further chaos with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, these improvements are being welcomed with open arms.
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Main image courtesy of iStock