Tardy drivers ghosts?

2003-04-23 07:20

Rajaa Azzakani

Johannesburg - At least 200 000 out of more than a million drivers who haven't switched to the new credit card type licences may be dead.

On Tuesday the transport department admitted this possibility was being investigated in light of the shockingly low number of people applying for the new licences.

Only five days remain before the extended cut-off date expires.

Senior transport official Lisa Mangcu said the fist time his department had applied to Home Affairs for death records was about two weeks ago. He added no legislation made provision for tracing deaths and the department had to approach Home Affairs to access such information.

The Automobile Association (AA) on Tuesday expressed shock that this figure, as well as the number of South Africans living abroad, had never been taken into account.

"We suspected as much. But we couldn't believe they hadn't verified the figures from time to time. Surely they must have the infrastructure to do so," said AA spokesperson Gary Ronald.

"This is in line with what we've heard at grassroots level, and explains the absence of queues at licencing offices."

If this is true it, getting staff to work overtime and extending the cut-off date would have been completely unnecessary.

- Beeld