Over the past three and a half years, South Africa’s only driver’s licence card printing machine has cost taxpayers over R12 million in repairs and maintenance, with nearly 130 working days lost due to repeated breakdowns. This information came to light through a written reply by Transport Minister Barbara Creecy to parliamentary questions posed by Songezo Zibi, leader of Rise Mzansi.

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Zibi questioned the reliability of the 26-year-old card printing machine, which has seen extensive downtime in recent years, especially during 2025 when it was out of commission for much of the year. The repeated failures have led to a massive backlog in the production of driver’s licence cards, which stood at 733,000 cards as of mid-May.

Breakdown of Downtime and Repair Costs

Minister Creecy detailed the machine’s operational failures over the past four financial years:

2022/2023: 26 working days lost, R9,267,862.33 spent on repairs
2023/2024: 48 days lost, costing R1,651,772.57
2024/2025: 17 days of downtime, with R544,747.64 in maintenance expenses
2025/2026 (so far): 38 days lost, R624,988.10 spent

In total, the machine has been offline for 129 days, with R12,089,370.57 in cumulative repair costs.

Impact on Workforce and Operations

To keep up with demand during and after breakdowns, the Department of Transport incurred an additional R4.4 million in overtime payments over the past three financial years:

2022/2023: R1,435,376.79
2023/2024: R1,608,102.52
2024/2025: R1,351,473.78
2025/2026: No overtime reported to date

The minister also confirmed that the machine requires four operators to run efficiently. Despite its frequent issues, the machine has a monthly capacity of producing approximately 300,000 cards, and operations resumed in early May 2025.

Questions Around New Machine Procurement

In light of ongoing reliability issues and spiraling repair costs, attention has turned to the tender process for a new printing machine. However, Minister Creecy revealed that the tender process is under legal review. A declaratory order from a High Court has been requested to assess the legality of the R898 million contract awarded in August 2024 to the South African arm of French tech firm Idemia.

This follows concerns raised by the Auditor-General, who flagged the tender as irregular. The procurement process originally began in April 2023 and concluded by May 2023, but has since come under scrutiny.

The Driving Licence Card Account (DLCA) had allocated R486 million for the project, yet Idemia’s winning bid was significantly higher—estimated between R762 million and R898 million. Other bidders included Ren-Form Corporate Print Media, Nec Xon Systems, Muehlbauer ID Services, and Gemalto Altron Fintech Southern Africa.

The continued breakdowns of South Africa’s sole driver’s licence card printer have exposed deeper issues in equipment management, procurement oversight, and contingency planning. With over R12 million spent on repairs and production delayed by over 130 days, the urgency to resolve the legal and logistical hurdles surrounding the acquisition of a new, reliable system is more critical than ever.

Licence Card Chaos: Costly Breakdowns and Growing Backlogs

The repeated breakdowns of South Africa’s only driver’s licence card printer have led to costly delays, significant backlogs, and rising public frustration. With over R12 million spent on repairs and more than 130 days of lost production time, replacing the aging machine is no longer optional—it’s essential.