Cape Town - In November 2015, Wheels24 reported that the City of Cape Town would no longer be issuing vehicle licence-renewal reminders, calling on drivers to be responsible for checking licence discs.
Given that December is the "busy period" for most administrations in the country, the city of Cape Town warned that it would not send any notices during November/December.
In January 2015, a serious backlog has caused the City to intervene.
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The City of Cape Town has taken over the responsibility of sending out vehicle licence disc-renewal notices for the City’s vehicle owners, following what it calls a failure of the responsible "national agencies to do so since October 2015".
City of Cape Town said: "This failure has had a severely negative impact on City operations and has led to long queues at municipal offices and substantial online application backlogs.
"Because the responsible national agencies continue to fail to issue reminders to motorists, the City of Cape Town has obtained the list of the City’s vehicle owners whose discs are expiring on 31 January 2016 and are renewable by 22 February 2016, and will start to issue these renewal notices from this week."
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The City has also met with the South African Post Office for avoid further delays.
Drivers, whose vehicle licence discs are set to expire by February 29 2016 and are renewable by March 22, will also be receiving renewal notices during the first two weeks of February.
Why the delay?
The Western Cape Government notified the City of Cape Town in October 2015 that challenges that arose from the National Department of Transport’s transfer of the Electronic National Traffic Information System (eNaTIS) to the Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) had not been resolved.
Further renewal notices, system support, maintenance and the acquisition of additional eNaTIS equipment would be affected.
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The City says: "This has caused delays at our municipal offices as we have had to physically look up every amount payable in addition to implementing new national proof of residence requirements for vehicle registration services. Amounts payable are complicated to work out as this is calculated on vehicle weight: the heavier the vehicle the more it costs."
City requests that drivers minimise their risk of standing in long queues by applying for their vehicle licence online. For enquiries, residents should e-mail: help.uces@capetown.gov.za
Vehicle owners are reminded that proof of address is required when renewing vehicle licence discs.
For a full list of acceptable documents that constitute proof, visit the Western Cape Government website.