Accra, Nov. 05, - The Driver and
Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) on Monday said it will deploy new regulatory
requirements for digital transport operators like Uber and Taxify, beginning in
the first quarter of 2019.
According to Mr. Kwasi Agyeman
Busia, DVLA Chief Executive Officer, said the Authority had engaged and
concluded negotiations with management of Uber and Taxify on modalities to
regulate their operations.
Mr Agyeman Busia said this at the
opening of a two-day DVLA Strategic Review Conference on the theme: “Continuity
of Excellent Service Delivery: For Growth, Safety and Security,” which will
assess and review implementation of its two-year strategic plan.
He said they had concluded on the
need to identify and differentiate Uber or Taxify cars from other private cars.
“It will be a sticker to uniquely
identify Uber or other digital transports, and that will be ready towards the
end of this quarter,” he said.
The guidelines, he said, would
also include Uber and Taxify cars undergoing road-worthy certification twice a
year, as all commercial vehicles do.
“Previously, if you have a
private car, you do not have to do that, but now, they will have to do so
because they use it both as a private and commercial car,” he noted.
Mr. Agyeman Busia also stated
that most importantly, Uber and Taxify or cars used for digital taxi services
would have to be insured to ensure that in the event of an accident, passengers
would be covered.
He explained that this was a very
important aspect of the regulations since such cars, which were originally
private cars, now pick passengers.
“By the beginning of the first
quarter, we will turn it on in full steam whereby both Uber and Taxify and all
digital transports will be regulated; meaning their licenses will be checked to
make sure they meet the criteria, that they have the appropriate insurance
coverage and that they do road worthiness twice a year as commercial vehicles
do,” he said.
This move is one of initiatives
to be implemented by the DVLA’s in 2019, in a bid to improve service
excellence. Other initiatives to be implemented include the piloting of project
to identify, and regulate over 300,000 locally manufactured trailers in order
to curb the frequency of deaths occurring as a result of neglected and
unidentified trailers on the highways.
The Authority would also activate
regulation 123 of the Legislative Instrument 2180, which mandates it to issue
commercial driving permitted for commercial drivers.
These initiatives follow the
successful implementation of the first part of its two-year strategic business
plan unveiled in 2017 to address the various inefficiencies at the DVLA,
including poor customer services, revenue leakages, weak and unsafe systems,
insecure products and heavy bureaucratic processes.
He noted that the implementation
of the plan, dubbed; “Double-Double Business plan,” was aimed at increasing
productivity by a 100 per cent by the end of 2019.
He explained that it had helped
to reduce the incidence of these challenges and thus, improved public
impression of the Authority, reduced the backlog of licenses to replace, and
increased revenues, among others through various reforms.
Professor Stephen Adei, Dean of
the Faculty or Arts and Sciences at Ashesi University, who chaired the two-day
conference, urged all regional heads and staff of the DVLA participating in the
conference to ensure that they contributed to the success story of the DVLA.
He advised the Authority not to
measure its improvements by comparing itself with other agencies or competing
with them but to rather compete against itself in order to constantly improve
on its work.
GNA
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