Some weary customers sitting in several very long lines in the foyer of the Makhado Municipality on July 2 said that the progress in the lines was very slow. In other lines, the customers were standing, waiting to get to the front to be helped.

Mr Kislon Mamadi, coming all the way from Alldays, said that he had been waiting for one hour and he was still not near the front of the queue.

"The process is very slow. There should be two people at the counters assisting us, not only one," Mr Mamada said. He came to pay his car license and was fortunate that he did not need take a day off from work, since he was an educator and it is school holidays.

Customers were there mostly in connection with driver´s licences or renewal of vehicle licenses.

One lady said that she suffered from an illness but had no option but to sit in the long queues. She had been sitting in the queue for the past two and a half hours.

Another lady said that she did not want to be identified because she does not like to always complain. She was, however, at the end of her tether because she had a business to attend to. She said that the queue moved at the pace of three customers per hour. She was happy to report later that she reached the front of the queue much faster after the camera had flashed a couple of times. When she reached the front, however, she was told that the ID document copy needed to be certified and that there was no certification service available at the municipality. When she had enquired last week what documents she needed to bring, she was not informed about the fact that the ID document copy had to be certified.

When asked about the long, slow queues, the Municipal Manager, Ms Faith Muthambi, said that the "Municipality has done all possible to speed up service at local level."

Counter services in the licensing hall had been advanced to 07:00 and cashiers remained on duty till 19:00 in the interest of service delivery, should circumstances so require. The long queues have clients for a variety of services, ranging from learner drivers´ licenses, driver´s licenses vehicle registration, vehicle licensing, business licensing and some other general enquiries. In the past, the learner and driver’s licensing clients were served at another location but since they are now served in the same venue, they form part of the queues.

"The Help Desk in the foyer of Municipality deals effectively with assistance to clients who end up sitting in the queues. Clients firstly report to the Help Desk, from where they are directed further. The help desk is manned from 07:00 tot 16:00 and later if necessary, with no lunch hour," Muthambi said.

Concerning the eNatis system progress Muthambi said that "this function is a national competency of the Department of Transport. The backlog has been addressed and is still being attended to in the best way possible at local level."