Govt searches for new licence card supplier
Challenges the Directorate of Road Traffic and Safety Services (DRTSS) is facing to issue new driver’s licences has pushed the government to look for a new supplier, Nation on Sunday has established.
Minister of Transport and Public Works Jacob Hara confirmed the search in an interview on Friday, that the new supplier will supplement the current contractor, Data Net Limited, up until when its contract expires.
DRTSS and Data Net Limited signed a K1 billion contract in 2023 to supply polyvinyl chloride (PVC) cards to print the driver’s licence cards.
This means taxpayers will pay two suppliers for a single service once the government identifies this new contractor to work alongside Data Net Limited.
But Hara defended the move, claiming that the current firm is struggling to timely deliver the cards.
He said: “We are currently making sure that we find another contractor because we believe this [current] contractor is not able to keep up to the works and deliver the licence cards at the pace that we need. So, we are looking for another contractor that they work together to ensure that we have the service.”
The government’s move to look for a new contractor comes at a time people applying for new driver’s licences or seeking renewals have been issued with temporary paper licences instead of the cards.
Failure to issue the licence cards has also resulted in DRTSS’ revenue dropping.
According to the 2024 Malawi Annual Economic Report from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, as at November 2023, DRTSS had made a revenue loss of K8.3 billion, partly due to the current challenges.
But the minister stated that government cannot terminate its contract with Data Net Limited since it was given an advance payment as per their contract.
“However, that does not stop us from contracting another firm now because we have a service to provide to Malawians, and so, we don’t want to have that inefficiency to affect the rest of the country just because of one contractor,” he said.
Hara, therefore, said the government is optimistic that bringing a new contractor on board will help deal with the present challenges.
DRTSS director Andrew Sandula in a separate interview on Friday could not divulge more on the contractor, saying the Ministry of Transport was better placed as it handles contractual issues.
But he indicated that delays in identifying Data Net Limited in 2023 to supply the cards compounded the challenges in issuing the cards to applicants. He said once Data Net Limited was identified, it met challenges pertaining to forex shortages.
But he said: “Now that forex is available, the licence cards are coming in slower than normal. What you must also know is that when the cards are coming, they need to come with tonner. So, this time around, there were more cards and less tonner.”
Sandula, however, said last week DRTSS received some tonner, which compelled the institution to start printing the cards.
But our efforts to talk to Data Net Limited officials yesterday proved futile as they could not be reached on their mobile numbers we were given were out of reach. We also sent questionnaires through WhatsApp better there was no feedback.
In the absence of a national identity card and a passport, a driver’s licence is used to access certain services in some private and public institutions apart from being authorization to drive.
