Cape Town - Less than two weeks after the Cape Town council reopened its driving licence testing centres, nine have been closed down due to Covid-19 cases being reported.
The council's traffic spokeswoman Maxine Bezuidenhout on Sunday confirmed the closures affecting the Parow, Brackenfell, Hillstar, Bellrail in Bellville, Gallows Hill, Fish Hoek, Kuilsriver, Somerset West and Gordon’s Bay testing centres.
“The buildings are being deep-cleaned and operations will resume as soon as this is done, and sufficient staff members are available to resume their duties,” Bezuidenhout said.
The Western Cape province, of which Cape Town is the capital, is currently the epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa as it accounts for 52.9 percent of the country’s infections.
Brackenfell Testing Centre is one of nine testing centres closed due to Covid-19.
Photo: Henk Kruger/African News Agency (ANA)
Initially, Cape Town reopened 11 of its facilities on June 9, while the rest were reopened on June 17, offering limited services after centres had been closed for more than two months under a national lockdown instituted in late March.
The facilities were given the green light to reopen after the government further scaled down lockdown regulations - which had started off at 'level 5' - to 'level 3' from June 1.
The Cape Town council, like others around the country, has given motorists a 90-day grace period for the renewal of vehicle registration licences, professional driving permits as well as learners' and full driving licences which have expired during the lockdown.
Bezuidenhout said all those whose pending tests for learners' and driving licence road tests had been impacted by the testing station closures would be contacted for alternative dates.
The national health department reported that as of Sunday South Africa had recorded 97,302 confirmed cases of Covid-19, out of which 1,930 people had died, while 51,608 had recuperated, a 53 percent recovery rate.
