The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) has denied media reports that its printing machines have broken down since June 2014, creating a backlog of about 23,000 unprinted licenses.
The Chief Executive Officer of the DVLA, Rudolf Beckly, on the Citi Breakfast Show said the report is “far from the truth” and remarked that “one wonders what kind of printer will be there and cannot be fixed from June 2014 to date.”
[contextly_sidebar id=”Fn9YOMlibySdshgOclifrHoHVh1QjGtX”]The Daily Graphic on Wednesday reported that the DVLA has been unable to issue drivers’ licenses since mid-2014 because some printing machines have broken down.
The Director of Driver Training, Testing and Licensing of the DVLA, C.W. Musah, was quoted as saying, the Authority is facing difficulty in acquiring the spare parts to get the machines fixed.
Out of the eight printing machines, it was reported that only three had been fixed and were currently being used to print out the licenses.
Mr. Beckly however admitted that indeed, there has been a delay in the release of driver’s licenses, but explained that the development was caused by an ongoing scrutiny of all printed cards between February to December 2014 and not broke down machines.
Mr. Beckly disclosed that the management of the DVLA had an intelligence report that there is this syndicate which is dropping fake records into the Authority’s licensing procedures.
Based on the intelligence report, a four-member committee was formed in October 2014 to screen the about 30,000 drivers licenses printed between the said period before they are distributed to the various stations for onward release to drivers.
The DVLA boss indicated that the number of persons screening the licenses has also contributed to the delayed release because “it is a daunting task.”
The report according to him indicted some offices of the DVLA nationwide saying, “in some stations, out of for example 405 licenses that were produced and yet to be distributed, 59% of them were fake…”
The committee, Mr. Beckly said also detected that there was “a malpractice and a malfeasance in the cause of bringing requests to us to print those licenses.”
“This report is delving deep and come out with what happened to those license production processes. So that we can ensure that we put in structures to stop them,” he assured.
“As a result of this good exercise, a lot of revelations have come out…I sincerely apologize to the public that we were not able tell them,” he added.
The DVLA boss further announced that his outfit is “printing cards and distributing cards…In spite of that delay, we have not denied any driver or rider the use of the road. We’ve had a preliminary option to have to ensure…that there is a temporal license that we’ve granted to drivers and they are effectively using the road.”
He also indicated that no printer has been broken down as of today.
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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