The Ministry of Transport announced the upcoming release of plastic license discs in place of the metal discs currently being used by Zimbabweans.
The government has been facing challenges with issuing metal license discs in recent years with a backlog that goes back as far as 2018. Some people that passed their driving tests back in 2018 have not yet received their license disks.
Most of the raw materials used in processing the metal license discs like, metal photo plates, a special dye, a fixer and a developer have to be sourced from the United States. The old manual machine used in the production process can only produce 48 licenses in one go and it always breaks down worsening the already desperate situation.
In their tweet, the Ministry of Transport said;
“The proposed new disc is compliant with the COMESA, EAC and SADC Tripartite region. We urge our valued citizens to bear with us in our transition from the old to the new SADC compliant driver’s license disc. This process is expected to be completed by end of June 2022”
Hopefully, this development will help alleviate the situation. There has been a problem with citizens securing important identification documents like passports and IDs because of the old systems used by the government to produce them. The shift to e-passports has been positive so far and hopefully, the shift to plastic license discs will be the same.