Government’s shortage of stationery means licences cannot be issued

Western Cape mobility MEC Ricardo Mackenzie wrote an open letter on Wednesday to the ministers of transport and home affairs, saying the stationery shortage in the province has created a backlog preventing the issuing of licence discs and registration certificates. 

“I will get straight to the point. The critical shortage of the ‘face value forms’ supplied by the national Government Printing Works (GPW) and used for issuing motor vehicle and driving licences will have a disastrous impact on our people and economy,” Mackenzie said. 

GPW staff have recently attempted to ease the frustration by sending a few boxes “just to keep [us] going for a week”, with the assurance they are “working on a plan to clear back-orders”. 

The Western Cape now has a backlog of 750 boxes of forms from July 7 2023 to September 21 2023 that have not been supplied and orders before this had to be closed on their system because they have not been fulfilled. 

“If we run out of these forms and cannot supply our municipalities, there will be no motor vehicle licence discs, no vehicle registration certificates, no temporary driving licences for those beset by an emergency, and applicants who pass the test will not get their learners’ licences” said Mackenzie .

“The impact on the quality of life of our citizens and our commitment to a lawful society will be significant.” 

Mackenzie said the issue has been raised repeatedly but no response has been received and the effect of the stationery shortage resulted in a reduced number of forms supplied to various municipalities. 

“We have and will continue to do our best to manage this situation, but if the national government — under the auspices of your departments — does not fulfil our orders urgently we will run out of these forms.

“We cannot let problems with stationery leave our citizens stationary.”

TimesLIVE