The Provincial Government Gazette has published the draft regulation pertaining to motor vehicle licence (MVL) fee increases in the province.

The draft regulation is still open for public comment until Friday, 8 February 2019.

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We have continued to publish these draft regulations for comment to allow the more than 2 million vehicle owners in the Western Cape the opportunity to submit their comments.

This year, the proposed fee increases amount to an average of 3% for the Western Cape, a figure well below inflation.

The Western Cape Provincial Government relies on vehicle licence fees to:

• Build, upgrade and maintain the provincially-owned road network.

• Assist municipalities to fund the maintenance of their more strategic roads.

• Continue to reduce the maintenance backlog, which has been decreased by over 16% over the last 7 years.

These fees, along with budgetary allocations, help keep the Province’s roads in a good condition and during the 2017/18 financial year 94 8% of vehicle kilometres travelled on surfaced roads were travelled on roads in fair or very good condition. A total of 7 019km of provincial roads are in a fair to very good condition.

                                                                               Image: Wheels24

During this period 63 080m2 of surfaced roads were upgraded, 91 5772m2 of surfaced roads were rehabilitated, 45 997km of gravel roads were bladed and 22km of gravel roads were upgraded to surfaced roads.

This is in addition to the construction or upgrading of 6 bridges and 76 culverts. Our roads are an asset with an approximate value of R68 billion and they are consumed, over time, by the close to 2 million vehicle owners in the Western Cape and other users.