"Goro Boys" Collude With DVLA Staff

Despite efforts being made by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) boss, Mr. Joe Osei-Owusu, to rid the authority's premises of the so called "goro" boys, he may be busy flogging a dead horse.

According to a number of the boys whom the Chronicle spoke to undercover, although it is true that the new boss has good intentions for his outfit and is trying to get rid of them, they would continue to remain in business because their contacts, with whom they have been working over the last five years are still at post.

Beside this relationship with insiders, especially the testing officers and documentation staff, one basic reason they stressed, and Chronicle confirmed, is that their services are needed because of the long delays and voluminous paper work that applicants have to go through before receiving their licences or vehicle documents.

The boys said, "because we are familiar with the personnel and procedures, we charge the customers extra, part of this money is used to pay the officers who matter at the various stages of processing of the documents and we get the papers".

Upon further investigations this reporter gathered that a customer who has a copy of the old drivers licence and wants to acquire a new one, and can pay ?150,000, gets the licence within a week, compared to paying the approved rate of ?70,000 at a post office and waiting for three months before collection.

Similarly, for a change of ownership of documents which costs ?80,000 officially, the boys charge ?160,000 and use the remainder to bribe their way and pay themselves.

Chronicle also established that most of the boys front as employees of the embossment companies that surround the premises and use the offices as contact points from where they operate.

When Chronicle contacted the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for his comment on the problem, he did not deny the presence of some bad nuts in his outfit who collaborate with the goro boys.

However, he stressed that he would do every thing within his powers to weed out such persons; besides all efforts were being made to streamline procedures of documentation and cut down on the huge paperwork, which will in turn drastically reduce the time that customers have to spend, Mr. Osei-Wusu said.

In a related development, Chronicle learnt that an initial publication in our paper that two ladies in the computer department had been dismissed for allegedly collaborating with 'goro' boys, was not entirely true.

When Chronicle contacted one of the ladies Ms. Herty Nnoma Addison, who claims she was wrongfully dismissed, she vehemently denied being involved in any deal with the boys.

What happened, she disclosed was that she was only doing a favour for a member of staff who had requested assistance; this is something we all do for fellow members of staff; a claim that was corroborated by most of the employees.

As to the possible reasons for her dismissal, she revealed that being a shift leader she knows a lot of what goes on at the DVLA and coupled with her vocal and no-nonsense nature she was sure she was victimized in order to silence her and allow things to continue.

According to her there was no way she could have printed out the licence in her possession without her notifying the IT boss since he is the only one who knows the password that is issued for printing, so he could have defended her which he did not.

She argued that for the fact that it was her first offence, she should have been queried and warned, and not dismissed outright.

Osei-Owusu disclosed that his outfit has taken a number of measures to clamp down on the high incidence of accidents caused by reckless drivers leading to various degrees of injuries and deaths on the country's roads and highways.

He disclosed that the cause of such road accidents is as a result of lack of proper training of drivers and poor enforcement of road regulations, stressing that his outfit which is mandated to licence and regulate the activities of the drivers in the country, is putting in place training programmes for learner drivers and driver instructors to equip them with the requisite skills to enable them drive safely in the country.

Mr. Osei-Owusu, in an exclusive interview with this paper indicated that these measures would help curb road accidents caused by the bad drivers who illegally acquire licences with the aid of the "goro boys" and some bad nuts of the DVLA He said these drivers have never been to any recognized driving training institution to acquire the proper training but rather stay at home and engage the services of the "goro boys" with the help of the bad nuts to get driving licences.

He said DVLA in collaboration with stakeholders in the transport industry with funding from the Road Sub-Sector Development Programme designed syllabuses in July to govern the training of drivers, driving instructors and driving schools. The training programme is scheduled to take off early January 2003.

Mr. Osei-Owusu, told Chronicle that driver instructors from DVLA would be trained outside the country, and these officers are expected to, in turn, train all instructors of driving schools.

He added that sooner or later illiterate drivers would be phased out on the roads; this is because under the current constitutional provision, every Ghanaian is expected to have free basic education up to at least Junior Secondary School (JSS) level; therefore all aspiring drivers are expected to be able to read and write, and thus be able to read and understand road signs.

He said in the past, there was no syllabus to regulate the activities of driving schools and their instructors in the country; explaining that in order to correct this practice the DVLA has also devised the syllabus for driver instructors.

The CEO revealed that after the initial driving training, all potential driver trainees, would have to take a written examination that would be conducted by the DVLA at their premises, based upon the syllabus used in training them in the schools, to attest to their proficiency before they are issued with licences.

He said after the DVLA has completed its responsibility by training the drivers, the law enforcement agencies have a major role to play in regulating these drivers on the road to avoid accidents.