More frustration for South African motorists in seven provinces
Key topics:
Only 2 of 9 provinces can book licences via the Natis online portal
SA faces 690,000+ backlog due to broken licence card printer
Tender irregularities delay new printer rollout; court case underway
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Three and a half years after its launch, the National Administration Traffic Information System (Natis) online portal only supports motorists’ booking driving licence appointments in two of nine provinces.
This includes motorists in the Eastern Cape and Gauteng. While the system previously supported bookings for North West motorists, the platform isn’t currently working for them.
The North West was the latest province added to the platform, joining sometime after May 2024. Unlike other unsupported provinces, the eNatis interface doesn’t explain why the North West is offline.
Selecting other unsupported provinces on the eNatis platform produces a notice stating: “Please take note of the following: Your Province has not been added to the online platform”.
MyBroadband asked the Department of Transport why the system isn’t working for motorists in the North West, but it didn’t immediately answer our questions.
Motorists in seven provinces, namely the Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, the Northern Cape, the Western Cape, and now, the North West, cannot access the online system.
Simon Zwane, spokesperson for the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC), previously told MyBroadband that relevant provincial authorities must decide whether or not to support the platform.
“The RTMC has made the service available to all provinces and will be able to roll it out as soon as the provincial authorities indicate their readiness to have the services,” he said.
Zwane added that unsupported provinces had expressed interest in the platform and that his organisation is ready to assist them in rolling it out once they’re ready.
In feedback to MyBroadband, the Western Cape transport and public works department previously said it would only consider adopting the system at its Driving Licence Testing Centres (DLTCs) in 2025/26.
First, it wanted to roll out smart enrolment devices, which the Western Cape provincial government planned for the 2024/25 financial year.
In an earlier response, the department’s spokesperson, Jandré Bakker, said the province had opted against adopting the system because of the challenges it faced in Gauteng.
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“The department has been waiting for a report on the experience of Gauteng to assist with the decision-making process,” he said.
Driving licence card printing chaos
Motorists in the Gauteng and Eastern Cape will likely face significant delays in receiving driving licence cards, regardless of whether or not they completed the application online.
South Africa’s only driving licence card printing machine is outdated and prone to breakdowns, with the latest failure occurring in February 2025.
After extensive downtime, the driving licence card printer returned to service on 8 May 2025, resulting in a peak production backlog of 747,748 cards.
Transport minister Barbara Creecy provided an update later in the month, revealing that the backlog stood at around 733,000 on 15 May 2025.
On 12 June 2025, Department of Transport spokesperson Collen Msibi revealed that the backlog had been reduced to 690,000 cards.
“In terms of reducing the backlog as a whole, we try to do monthly updates, but we’re looking at about four to six months,” he said.
However, considering there were 18 working days between 15 May and Msibi’s update, the DLCA had cleared an average of just 2,400 cards per day.
At this tempo, it will take more than 13 months to clear the 690,000 driving licence card production backlog completely.
The Department of Transport has made progress in procuring new driving licence card printers, but the process has since stalled.
It announced Idemia South Africa as the preferred bidder for the contract to procure the new machines in August 2024.
However, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) highlighted various irregularities surrounding the tender adjudication process.
This, in turn, prompted Creecy to ask the Auditor-General to widen its investigation into the tender process, through which it found various irregularities.
As a result, the minister approached the courts for a solution, and her department filed papers at the Pretoria High Court in mid-July 2025 requesting that the contract be overturned.
In the meantime, the department has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government Printing Works under Home Affairs’ jurisdiction to produce driving licence cards in the interim.
This article was first published by MyBroadband and is republished with permission