AfriForum has accused Transport Minister Barbara Creecy of repeatedly misleading both the public and Parliament regarding the waiver of temporary driving licence fees.

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According to the civil rights organisation, Creecy publicly stated several times that the Department of Transport (DoT) had scrapped the R72 fee for temporary driving licences in light of the severe card renewal backlog.

This backlog arose earlier this year when the country’s only licence card printing machine broke down between February and May, causing a pile-up of more than 700,000 applications. While the backlog has since been reduced to around 200,000 orders, the waiting period for a new card has doubled from two weeks to approximately two months.

Fee Waiver Promises and Confusion

Creecy told Parliament that the department had decided to waive the temporary licence fee to ease the burden on motorists whose cards had expired.

She repeated this commitment in July and again in September, assuring MPs and the public that the decision was officially adopted at a ministerial meeting on 27 June. Transport spokesperson Collen Msibi also confirmed the decision in multiple interviews, stating clearly:

“The Minister and MEC took a decision on 27 June 2025 to waive the R72 fee for a temporary driving licence.”

However, on 15 October 2025, AfriForum said it received confirmation from the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) that the R72 fee was still in effect nationwide. This contradicted the minister’s repeated claims of a blanket exemption.

“All in the Fine Print,” Says Department

The Department of Transport later clarified that the exemption applied only under specific and restrictive conditions.

According to Msibi, three criteria must be met:

The licence must have expired between 5 February and 8 May 2025, during the printer breakdown.
The temporary licence application must have been made within three months of the licence card expiry.
The application had to occur after 23 July 2025, when the exemption was implemented.

Anyone applying after the printer resumed operation was excluded.

This effectively meant the exemption was only valid for a 17-day window, despite the printer being offline for more than three months.

AfriForum Says Transport Minister’s Remarks Were Misleading

AfriForum argued that Creecy’s repeated statements suggested a broad fee waiver, which was never the case. It said the minister failed to disclose the fine print during her parliamentary briefings and media engagements.

The organisation also pointed out that Creecy made her last public comment on the exemption in September weeks after the waiver had effectively ended.

“Motorists were led to believe that the fee had been waived for everyone affected by the backlog, when in reality, the exemption was extremely limited,” AfriForum said.

It is now considering legal action to compel the department to suspend the temporary licence fee until the remaining 200,000-card backlog is cleared.

Department Faces Growing Pressure

As the backlog continues and motorists remain frustrated with the R72 fee, AfriForum has urged the Department of Transport to act decisively and transparently.

The civil group argued that a full fee waiver would be the fairest way to address delays caused by the state’s outdated infrastructure.

With ongoing concerns about the reliability of the printing machine, many fear a repeat of this year’s backlog and potentially more public outrage if the fee policy remains unchanged.