The Department of Transport is finalising its plan to extend the validity period of driving licences to eight years.

• The Department of Transport is finalising its plan to extend the validity of driving licences in South Africa.
• Transport department spokesperson Collen Msibi says there is political will for the extension.
• If the change is implemented, motorists will need to renew their driving licences every eight years instead of five.
• For more financial news, visit News24 Business.

The Department of Transport is finalising its plan to extend the validity period of driving licences in South Africa from five years to eight, meaning motorists will need to visit licensing centres less often.

After more than a decade of back and forth, the department has indicated it intends to go ahead with the change, as there is strong demand from the public.

In July, the department indicated that the Road Traffic Management Corporation was conducting a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether it was a good idea to extend the validity period of driving licences.

READ | ‘Common-sense plan’: Govt mulls 8-year driver’s licence

On Monday, Moneyweb quoted acting Department of Transport (DoT) director-general Mathabatha Mokonyama saying the change was set to go ahead.

“Our analysis and assessment is that South Africans do favour a longer period.

“They don’t want to come back to us every five years to have their licences renewed, so we will definitely be moving to eight years soon,” he said.

News24 reached out to Department of Transport spokesperson Collen Msibi to confirm Mokonyama’s comments.

Msibi said the cost-benefit analysis was “near finality”.

Asked whether Mokonyama’s insistence that the validity period would “definitely” be extended was correct, Msibi said:

There is political will for the extension, he said, and the matter has been finalised except for the cost analysis.

OUTA’s campaign

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) has put pressure on the department to extend the validity period for several years.

OUTA CEO Wayne Duvenage previously told News24 the extension was a “common-sense plan” that would save people time and money.

In his view, there was no need for a cost-benefit analysis, as the extension would clearly only benefit citizens.

He added that there was no evidence to suggest a relationship between more frequent renewals and road safety.

Duvenage explained that former Transport Ministers Dipuo Peters, Fikile Mbalula, and Sindisiwe Chikunga all said they would extend the validity of driving licences in South Africa, but then backtracked on the proposal at a later date or failed to implement the change.

READ | Wrong country. Wrong machine. The R900m driving licence tender bungle

Duvenhage said the intervention was a simple way to alleviate pressure on South Africa’s only driving licence printing machine, which has broken down numerous times over the years, resulting in massive backlogs in applications.

Irregularities were identified in the Driving Licence Card Account’s (DLCA) attempt last year to procure a new driving licence printing machine. The department approached the courts to have the almost R900 million deal set aside.

READ | SA has a working digital driving licence – which took 3 months to build

Meanwhile, there has also been substantial progress in the rollout of a digital driving licence for South Africa.

A small team in the Presidency, in Collaboration with the Department of Transport, built a working digital driving licence in three months.

While it has not launched yet, it is one of the potential use cases being envisioned for the MyMzansi platform, a new digital entry point for citizens to access government services.