18 companies to undertake testing of vehicles for DVLA

Page 31: Daily Graphic, November 19, 2008.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE management of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) has authorised 18 companies to undertake vehicle testing on its behalf.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic in Accra the acting Chief Executive of the DVLA, Mrs Mabel Sagoe, and the Director of Vehicle Inspection and Registration, Mr George Ackom, explained that seeding out of the vehicle testing duties of the DVLA would enhance its other regulatory roles, including establishment of standards and methodology for training as well as licensing of drivers.
They said the authority was awaiting government approval on the testing fees to be charged by the 18 companies, and denied that the offloading of the vehicle testing functions of the authority constituted a sell-out of the authority. They argued that it was in line with the provisions of the law establishing the authority which could be accessed by members of the public.
Section 3 (j) of the DVLA Act, Act 569, gives the authority the mandate to “license and regulate private garages to undertake vehicle testing”.
The acting chief executive wondered why Parliament would make such a provision for the licensing of private garages to undertake vehicle testing if it was not in the national interest.
Mrs Sagoe said what the DVLA currently did was visual inspection which did not augur well for road safety.
She said under such circumstances it was difficult for vehicle inspectors to know the state of a particular vehicle and also gave them power to fail or pass vehicles without any scientific basis.
She said some vehicle owners even refused to send their vehicles for the visual inspection and paid something extra which often went into the pockets of middlemen.
Mrs Sagoe said with the seeding out of the vehicle testing to private garages, the activities of the middlemen would be eliminated while car owners would be compelled to send their vehicles for testing.
She said the selected private garages were fully equipped with state of the art facilities to ensure that road safety standards were met.
She denied any secret meetings or clandestine moves between the authority and private garages.
According to her, advertisements were made in the media requesting for the expression of interest following which a number of companies applied.
She said the authority also held stakeholder consultations with road users, including road unions, to set the standards for the private garages.
Mrs Sagoe said the regional and district directors of the DVLA were also in the known about the proposed seeding out of the vehicle testing functions of the DVLA.
“The issue is not new because the process started under the leadership of the immediate past Chief Executive, Mr Joe Osei-Owusu, and staff were duly informed at staff durbars. The October 7, 2008 meeting was to inform the staff that the roll-out plan was almost ready,” she said, adding that there had not been any secret meetings or clandestine moves.
Mrs Sagoe said the DVLA was a regulator and could only regulate if some of those functions were seeded out.
“It is also untrue that the staff of the vehicle section would lose their jobs. No staff would lose his/her job because the DVLA was already overwhelmed with other functions such as licensing of drivers, training and testing of driving instructors which would also require more hands to satisfy our clients,” she said.
Mrs Sagoe said the private garages would only charge testing fees which would be fixed by the government to avoid arbitrariness.
She said the private garages would be linked to the DVLA via the internet to ensure sanity and transparency in the vehicle testing process by the private garages so that after each testing, the DVLA would know which vehicle passed the test before a road user certificate would be issued to them.
For his part, Mr Ackom explained that the introduction of the private garages would also decongest vehicle testing centres and also halt the situation where all vehicles had to be taken to the DVLA offices.
According to Mr Ackom five of the private garages which have been given the authorisation to undertake the vehicle testing are based in Accra while the rest are spread across the country. He said other applications were still being processed.
He said Bivac International Ghana Ltd, located at Amasaman, Vito (S-Class Services Ltd) located at Dome, SPC Engineering & Transport Services at Weija, Intercity STC Coaches Ltd at the Light Industrial Area and Ben-Sam Auto Services at Oyibi were those given initial authorisation in Accra.
Mr Ackom said five others, Car Test Ltd, IT Recycle Ltd, Auto Parts, Road Safety Ltd and Koffson Inspection Ltd, were authorised in Tema to undertake the vehicle testing when Cabinet approves the take off of the project.