The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) has defended an internal committee it has set up to investigate recent reports of widespread corruption among its staff.
Chief Executive of the Authority, Rudolf Beckley, formed the six-member committee after undercover investigations by Tiger Eye, a firm owned by Investigative Journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, exposed a complex web of racketeering within Ghana’s vehicle licensing regime.
Tiger Eye’s year-long investigation saw an undercover team of journalists visit a number of regional offices of the DVLA, where they collected video evidence of chronic corruption among staff of the Authority.
The team also gathered proof of weaknesses in the systems established by the DVLA to prevent racketeering. The weaknesses made it easy for the team to acquire licenses for market women, mentally and physically challenged persons, expatriates, among other individuals, without going through laid down process of acquiring a license.
The findings of the undercover investigations, released early this month, compelled authorities at the DVLA to interdict at least eight of the Authority’s officials exposed by the video documentary.
The DVLA leadership then set up the Cheyuo Wienna Musah Committee to, among other things, establish if the DVLA officials captured on the video recording acted alone or worked hand in hand with other members of staff of the Authority.
The committee is also mandated to find out possible collusion between the interdicted DVLA officials and ‘goro boys’ [middle men] in the issuance of fake driver’s licenses, road worthy stickers and vehicle registration documents.
But, critics have variously slammed the formation of the committee, with some suggesting it may have been a clever attempt by the top management of the DVLA to cover-up the rot within the under-fire Authority.
Instead of an internal committee of enquiry, critics have called for immediate arrest and prosecution of all the DVLA officials exposed by Tiger Eye investigations. But, DVLA Chief, Rudolf Bekley, rejected the call for swift prosecution of the interdicted officials in a Citi News interview.
“For all you know, there is a whole syndicate behind the scene,” he said. “Will it be enough to say that these are the [members of] staff involved in the malfeasance?
“So… until you set up a committee to probe further, you will never go deep to find the truth of the matter. It is the reason we have put up the committee to delve deep into the matter and come up with issues pertaining to this level of malpractice.”
By: Eugenia Tenkorang/citifmonline.com/Ghana