A civil society organization has called on the government to give a grace period for the citizens to acquire new driving license.

Recently, the traffic police department launched the new permit that is said to acquire more feature that will not allowed forgery.

Some residents of Juba have complained of harassment by traffic officers for not possessing the new license, according to Rajab Mohandis, the Executive Director of the South Sudan Network for Democracy and Elections.

“What we are saying as civil society is that the kind of crackdown that is going on and the kind of harassment that is going on the road, with the drivers; with anybody having a car on the road must stop,” Mr. Mohandis said.

He called on the concerned authorities to give them time so that the can renew the driving permit.

“I think the traffic officers or whoever is responsible for that particular section need to give a grace period for citizens to understand that there are going to be change,” Mr. Mohandis stressed.

He was speaking during a forum between the civil society and organized forces on security of the public on Tuesday in Juba.

In response, the Spokesperson of police, Brigadier Daniel Justin, claimed that the citizens were given time to renew their license.

“We have asked people to renew and we gave them a grace period and sometimes we tell to the people from this date and this date you can and renew your license free and after that you will pay some money,” he said, “but people they don’t respond.”

Brigadier Justin says the new permits are important because “the old one have some weak points whereby it can be easily forged; the new ones now, this is standard; you cannot forge it whatsoever”.

Early last year, the Directorate of Traffic Police also introduced the SSD number plates to nationalize the number plates.

Traffic officers have been cracking down vehicles that do not possess the number plates.