The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) has extended its online vehicle registration system to its 34 operational offices nationwide, bringing an end to manual registration.
This means that after examination of vehicles, owners could now do the registrations online at their convenience, thereby eliminating the need for physical presence and bulky paperwork.
Hitherto, the online system was not nationwide and the Authority was running the manual and online system side by side, creating congestion at its offices especially every New Year.
The Deputy Director of Vehicle Inspection and Registration, Eric Addison, who disclosed this at a media engagement in Accra on Friday, said the full migration of vehicle registration and related services to a digital platform would help eliminate identity theft and false representation in providing these services.
“With the new system, vehicle owners can go through the registration process seamlessly, including biometric identity verification, without the need for physical presence,” he said.
Explaining the online system, Mr Addison said all the processes had been compressed into six stages, including vehicle examination, customs validation, identity verification, payment, and issuance of a license number.
He said on the DVLA website (online.dvla.gov.gh), invoices could be generated; payment done at any commercial bank or the Ghana.gov platform and after identity verification, and transaction approval, a license number would be generated.
He said in compliance with the National Identity Register Regulations, 2012 (LI 2111), which requires the mandatory use of the National Identity Card for transactions involving identity verification, the DVLA would accept only the National Identification Card (Ghana Card) for identity verification for all its services.
He said verification could be conducted in person at any DVLA office or remotely via the mobile app (DVLA verify) while a smart card bearing all documentation had been introduced to replace the bulky documentation.
Mr Addison said the new system offered enhanced security, convenience, and flexibility for vehicle owners.
He said the enhancement of vehicle registration was in line with its mandate and the DVLA’s automation journey started in 2008 with on-site banking services, progressing to digital vehicle registration in 2014.
In 2017, he said the online vehicle registration system was introduced, and by July 2023, the manual registration system was decommissioned in favor of a fully digital approach.
Mr Addison encouraged vehicle owners to visit any of its 34 offices for onboarding onto the digital platform, especially those who registered manually before 1995 as those registered after that year had already been digitised.
He also urged individuals who possessed vehicles without proper title transfer to visit DVLA offices for assistance, assuring all users of protection of their private information under data protection laws.
In his welcome address, the Deputy Chief Executive in charge of Services, Kwame Appiah-Kubi, said the Authority was upgrading its services as part of efforts to improve service delivery.
On the new cost of vehicle registration, he said there had been some adjustments depending on the specifications of the vehicle and that the charges had been approved by parliament.
BY JONATHAN DONKOR