Over 200,000 Fake Licence Holders Exposed

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority [DVLA], has taken steps to identify and withdraw all fake licences in the country.

According to sources at the offices of the DVLA, statistics indicate that 208,800 fake licences have been withdrawn and replaced as at August ending this year.

Sources at the DVLA told this paper that two female workers of the computer department were caught red-handed and were given out-right dismissal for aiding the "goro boys" to facilitate the issuance of fake licences to potential drivers in the premises of the authority.

Chronicle gathered that a process of mechanization which is currently underway under the auspices of the DVLA to streamline the process of acquiring licences has also identified 717 professional licences and 237 private ones to be fake.

These, which were identified only between August 2000 and August 2002, have been retrieved but are yet to be replaced.

It was further learnt that 27,436 more are to be validated by the end of December this year.

As part of the new checks being put in place to ensure that it is only qualified drivers who receive the new licences, between August 2000 and 2002 a total of 2,076 drivers were detected to have various visual impairments and would have to use glasses or contact lenses to enable them drive without problems.

In an interview the principal technical officer of the DVLA, Mr. Joseph Amamoo, he told Chronicle that besides those who failed the visual assessment standard test, 74 disabled drivers were identified as having to drive vehicles manufactured specifically for them.

He said that because they are too old, 28 drivers were found to be incapable of driving the heavy -duty vehicles they used to drive any longer.

Chronicle gathered that all efforts to drive away all the "goro boys" who hang around the DVLA premises to help people to get fake licences, to allow proper documentation procedures to be followed have so far proved futile.

This is attributed to the fact that most of the boys are relatives of soldiers and policemen who reside around the DVLA.

This coupled with the connivance of certain "bad nuts" within the DVLA, have made the illicit activities of the boys very easy.

However the Chief Executive of the DVLA, Mr. Joe Osei-Owusu, disclosed that efforts are being made to curb the activities of these "goro boys", stressing that there would soon be a special strategy to render these boys redundant by stream-lining all the documentation processes of the authority