Bellrail Driving Licence Testing Centre is among the centres whose operating hours have been extended until the end of August.
The City has announced that driving licence testing centres will be extending their operating hours until the end of August, to accommodate the looming deadline for licence renewal extensions that was granted during the hard lockdown in 2020.
The City said traffic services were experiencing longer queues at its Driving Licence Testing Centres.
This is largely due to the fact that the national extension for driving licences and public driving permits that expired between March 26 and December last year, expires on August 31 this year.
As a result, the centres have started seeing increased numbers coming in, resulting in longer queues.
To address this issue, the City will extend operating hours at 15 DLTCs for the rest of August to assist as many clients as possible.
The following centres will operate from 8am to 4.30pm, from Mondays to Saturdays, and 8am to 3pm on Sundays:
“Our Driving Licence Testing Centres were challenged last year, following months of closure and a backlog of tests and transactions when they reopened,” said mayoral committee member for safety and security, JP Smith.
“National government eased some of the pressure by extending the validity of driving licences until the end of August. So now we are experiencing an influx of people needing to renew their documentation, over and above the normal workload at the centres.
“It is also worth noting that public facilities have to abide by Covid-19 protocols, which means that there is a limit to the number of persons allowed inside the facility at any given time,” Mr Smith added.
“Furthermore, we have had numerous facility closures in the last month due to Covid-19 exposure, so while we are doing our utmost to assist as many people as possible, there are a number of very real challenges.
“We implore the public to please bear with us during this time, and to delay non-urgent transactions where possible, to help shorten the queues for the next few weeks.”
Residents are also reminded that the centres use the national Natis system to process transactions, particularly eye tests and fingerprints for card renewals.
Technical issues with the system are not within the City’s control to resolve, and where such issues arise, it slows down service delivery.