This afternoon I thought I had better go and visit the Motor Licensing Department just to check if my Drivers License is available for collection. I had renewed my license back on the 19th November so this is now over 90 days ago. I was told I would receive an SMS notifying me of collection, but I am still waiting.
When I arrived at the Motor Licensing Department it looked a little quiet as normally there are hundreds of people milling around offering photocopies, photographs etc. The gates to the offices were closed with people saying the systems are still offline and has been the entire week.
I know when we went to collect our passports last month what should have been a quick in and out turned into a nightmarish 6 hours for only 24 people waiting to collect. This was also down to being offline and not being able to boot up the data.
I saw a sign stating collections and followed the arrows around the back of the building where there was one lady behind a glass counter. There was no one else around so I thought I must be out of luck with her telling me she needs the system to issue my drivers license.
Thankfully it was all manual paperwork and I was out of there in under 2 minutes. I did notice a sign that stated if a license is not collected within 120 days it will be destroyed. This would mean doing the entire process again starting from scratch. I would have collected mine far sooner if they had messaged me like promised and not waited the 3 months just in case.
When I was leaving the premises it just felt so dead with no one caring which is exactly what is happening in most of the Government Departments. I was going to say run Departments but not much is running like this one with a padlock on their main gate.
People who want to obtain a license which I consider being a normal thing to want to do is just not happening. The knock on effects of those needing a license or a code for a car or driving trucks is at a stand still along with all the driving schools who earn money from those using their services.
Looking at the complaints online this is nothing new and an ongoing problem with dates as far back as 2016 complaining about the systems being off line for months. I didn't ask anyone if this has been down longer than a week and it might possibly be longer because it has been known to be down for a few months in the past.
Scary to think these people are running your country and making decisions on your behalf yet cannot maintain a system online which would be deemed basic in other countries. You quickly realise how bad things really are and how lucky you are to have obtained a passport and driving license under these circumstances.