A friend of mine from Cape Verde was issued with a permanent residence permit in South Africa in August 2009. Unfortunately, she did not convert her Cape Verde issued licence within one year as she was not aware of this requirement (ignorance is not an excuse).

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As per the requirements of the Department of Transport, once permanent residency has been obtained, holders of a foreign licence have one year in which to convert their foreign driving licence (or IDP together with driving licence for which it was issued) to a RSA licence after which failure to convert will render the licence invalid to convert or to drive with.In this regard, is there anything that my friend can do apart from going through the process of applying for a new licence?Please help my friend is troubled. My sympathies to your friend. I was in the exact same position exchanging my UK license. In the end the only solution that I could find was to apply for a South African license from scratch.The learner's license is easy enough but your friend should get lessons from a professional driving instructor for the practical as a lot of the K53 crap may well be different from how you learned elsewhere and takes a bit of adjustment. You aren't likely to pass on the basis of actually knowing how to drive!Also, ask around if people know good test centre near you - I used 3 Rivers near Vereeneging (about 30 minutes from us) and was able to get bookings within a couple of days. The staff there were also really excellent.Good luck to your freind.

Drivers Licence Dublin

My sympathies to your friend. I was in the exact same position exchanging my UK license. In the end the only solution that I could find was to apply for a South African license from scratch.The learner's license is easy enough but your friend should get lessons from a professional driving instructor for the practical as a lot of the K53 crap may well be different from how you learned elsewhere and takes a bit of adjustment. You aren't likely to pass on the basis of actually knowing how to drive!Also, ask around if people know good test centre near you - I used 3 Rivers near Vereeneging (about 30 minutes from us) and was able to get bookings within a couple of days. The staff there were also really excellent.Good luck to your freind. Once you have received your permanent residency you have a full year to sort out out your license, so what is this stupid 'welcome to SA' comment?

Its her fault for not doing it in time.They had a whole year to sort out the paper work, and they are quite efficient at doing this at Langlaagte, sob stories don't work that well, tried that.I was in the same boat, also didn't bother to change my international so couldn't get a local license so drove about 20 years without one, until it got harder and harder to BS the Metro cops so just did mine the proper K53 way a year or so ago, was quite embarrassing failing the first test.