Queues for the new credit-card licences are winding around the block at testing stations around South Africa as the clock ticks towards the final countdown at midnight on Friday.
Tens of thousands of motorists will then find themselves in jeopardy as metro police mount roadblocks around the country. Tshwane metro police representative Mel Vosloo said that officers were preparing to issue fines to those without the new licences. ”The amount of the fines may well vary from place to place.” he said.
”It is fixed by the chief magistrate of the province and it may be R300, R500 or even R1 000.
”However we have no plans to arrest anyone yet.” he added. Asked what would happen if a driver alone in a car had no valid licence and would therefore not be allowed to drive but had to abandon the vehicle, Vosloo said: ”We will have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Free State MEC for Public Transport, Sekhopi Malebo, said: ”Licensing centres in the province will close at 8pm on Friday and not at midnight as in other provinces. However, those motorists who are inside Free State centres at 8pm on Friday will still be helped.”
A crowd of some 800 people gathered at the licence office in Randburg, Johannesburg by dawn on Friday and many came equipped with umbrellas and chairs prepared for a long wait. An itinerant preacher was calling on people to repent and cooldrinks were readily available for those who hadn’t brought a book to read.
The Randburg office closed at 7pm on Thursday leaving 300 people noisily demanding to be allocated numbers and given preference to apply for their licences when the office reopened at 7.30am on Friday.
Allegations were made that certain applicants were allowed in after hours to apply for the licences but metro police monitoring the proceedings said they were unaware of any such incident.
Business is also brisk for newspaper vendors and telephone services as people call their workplace to explain that they may have to stay in line for the rest of Friday.
The mood in most of the kilometre-long queues is upbeat. Informal traders are using the queues to turn a profit and enterprising traders are braaing wors for sale and hawking hotdogs to hungry licence seekers.
Thus far two people have been arrested in Pretoria, one for possessing drugs and the other for being drunk and disorderly. – Sapa