By Kingsley Webora Tankeh
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), recorded one of its highest vehicle registrations in the early days of 2024, after a migration onto an exclusive online vehicle registration platform. According to officials at DVLA, more than 8,000 vehicles have been registered since the year begun.
The spike in registrations, according to officials of DVLA, can be attributed to the exclusive online vehicle registration platform, which was first piloted in 2017. The decision to go one hundred per cent digital on vehicle registrations was made in May 2023 after the platform garnered enormous reception from the public. The online vehicle registration platform has seen tremendous patronage since it was integrated exclusively, accounting for the registration of a little over 14,000 vehicles on the portal from September to January 12, 2024.
According to Officials at DVLA, the long winding queues that characterise early-year registrations have been absent this year. They said that the numbers were minimised despite a spike in the number of vehicles registered as at January 12.
According to the Deputy Director of the Vehicle Inspection and Registration at DVLA, Mr. Eric Bentil Addison, ”The Road Traffic Regulation, which defines the conditions and requirements with which a vehicle can be registered under the Road Traffic Act, was followed when crafting the online vehicle registration platform to allow for all the testing and inspection required by law to take place,” despite its online nature.
Testing and Examination of the vehicle are paramount to ensure that it meets the national standards in terms of safety, conformity, and use. So, the online vehicle registration platform requires that the vehicle is tested and examined first, for which the vehicle has to be physically present at the office. After that, the identity of the owner is verified and then he/she proceeds to make payment to finalise the process. Apart from the vehicle registration, which mandates physical presence, the subsequent two steps of the process—verification of identity and generation of invoice—can be undertaken at the applicant’s convenience.
In an effort to bring the services of DVLA closer to the doorstep of Ghanaians, it added about 13 additional vehicle registration centres to the existing offices across the country and partnered with private vehicle testing stations to perform equipment-based vehicle tests before being brought to the DVLA office to help ease congestion associated with vehicle registration.
The authority has implemented several measures to curb dubious acts by applicants in the process of acquiring Driver’s Licenses or registering their vehicles. The online vehicle registration platform and the electronic card are exceptional additions. The card replaces the application documents, which would have been issued as ownership documents in the old system, after a successful vehicle registration.
DVLA, as an institution, is not void of challenges and setbacks. Some of the challenges that plagued the manual application process have been brought under control as DVLA partners with the National Identification Authority to ensure real-time verification of the details of applicants before registering their vehicles for them.
“By default, the importer becomes the owner of the vehicle. So, we proceed to register the vehicle in the name of the importer and later transfer title to the prospective buyer. To do that, we seek the consent of the importer to transact that business. So that we protect the buyer and the prospective owner,” Mr. Eric explains. According to him, false representation and identity theft, which were serious challenges the authority grappled with, are now things of the past. There are stringent measures in place to check for such fraudulent acts.
The DVLA is also in liaison with the Ghana Revenue Authority through the Integrated Customs Management Systems (ICUMS), to check ‘uncustomed’ vehicles. “Once a vehicle is cleared from the port when you put in the VIN, we are able to profile the vehicle. Even when there is duty exemptions,” Mr. Eric added.
A Ghanaian living in USA, Bernard Akwoley, commended the DVLA after going through the seamless online process of acquiring a Driver’s License.
“I appreciate the fact that they’ve made the process easy and simple for us. I have a USA driver’s license in US. But they had to verify that I have all the requirements. I did my eye exam. They took my picture and fingerprints. The process is very smooth and perfect.”
In the years ahead, the DVLA promises a lot more innovation as the DVLA Act undergoes legislative review. The Authority will ensure that as much as possible, vehicles are registered the very year they are purchased to eliminate congestion at vehicle registration centers.