Stakeholders seek harmonisation of vehicle licensing

Directors and chief road traffic officers of the federation have decried the high rate of rickety vehicles on the highways, saying the trend is worrisome.

Executive Director, Niger State Motor Vehicle Administration Agency (NMVAA), Dr. Bako Mohammed spoke during a pre-event webinar ahead of the 2024 National Conference of Directors of VIOs, scheduled to take place from the 28th-30th October 2024 in Minna, Niger State.

The first in the series of the webinar addressed the topic of “Standardization and Harmonization of Vehicle Testing and Licensing: Issues and the Way Forward.”

Mohammed, a renowned expert in transportation management, said the safety of vehicles on the roads and highways is critical to the stakeholders and said there must be harmonization and standardization of vehicular statistics.

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He said vehicle testing and licensing must be handled by the same agency to ensure data reliability, and smoother vehicle administration, prevent revenue leakage, and boost internal revenue.

Mohammed noted that harmonization would address issues of proliferation of fake number plates, and vehicle documents, revenue leakages, among others.

“Vehicular movement is becoming uncontrollable. You see rickety vehicles on our roads, they are not well managed. We must take measures to ensure those issues preventing us from getting a well-managed vehicular movement resolved,” he added.

Director, Lagos Vehicle Inspection Service, Akin-George Fashola said the process of getting vehicle data must be highly efficient.

National Chairman Conference of Directors/Chief Road Traffic Officers of the Federation, Dr Paul Bepeh, said the webinar was part of the measures to sensitise critical stakeholders to the October conference of the traffic Officers.

He added that the contributions at the webinar would form part of the input into the forthcoming conference.