GJA Introduces Best Road Safety and Transporter Award

The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) has introduced the “Best Road Safety and Transporter Award” as part of the 2018 GJA Annual Award package to acknowledge the contribution of journalist towards road safety.

The Award seeks to motivate and honour journalists who do more quality stories on transport and road safety; Mr Roland Affail Monney, GJA President stated during a meeting with officials of the Driver and Vehicular Licencing Authority (DVLA) in Accra.

The meeting discussed a new partnership arrangement between the GJA and DVLA, as well as deepen their relationship.

Mr Monney, explained that GJA seeks to upscale road safety reportage, and that, through the collaboration, the GJA would organise training programmes for journalists to enable them to understand the change processes of the DVLA to educate the public better.

He said the partnership was a process and that with time, the DVLA would be empowered to render better service to the public, adding that, the media would be positioned to do quality stories on road safety and transport.

He urged journalists to report on transport and road safety as well as on the DVLA to be nominated for the award.

Mr Kwasi Agyeman Busia, Chief Executive of the DVLA, said the collaboration with GJA was in the right direction and management would deliberate on the award category proposal and decide on the package.

He said the DVLA has set a target to reduce the turnaround time for vehicle registration to just an hour by the end of 2019, and that, as part of the measures to achieve the target, the DVLA is set to roll-out an innovative pilot system for vehicle registration by the fourth quarter of the year.

Mr Busia said the DVLA had achieved tremendous success in reducing the turnaround time for the issuance of driver’s licence, “our focus now is to reduce the time for registration of vehicles.

“We are starting the pilot phase this year with the expectation that it would mature into main stream operations of DVLA next year”.

Touching on the implementation of the Luxury Vehicle Tax, which the DVLA is mandated to collect on behalf of the Government, Mr Busia said a Committee made up of officials from the Ghana Revenue Authority, Ministry of Finance, and the DVLA has been set up to facilitate the process.

The implementation of the Luxury Vehicle Tax law started on Wednesday, August 1. All vehicles with engine capacity of 2950 Cubic Centimeters and more are required to pay respective levies.

The levy is to be paid on the registration of vehicles and subsequently on or before the annual renewal of the roadworthy certificate of such vehicles.

Vehicles with engine capacities of 3.0 – 3.5 litres will attract an annual tax of GHC1,000.00; those with engine capacities of 3.6 – 4.0 litres will pay GHC1,500.00 annually; while 4.1 litres and above are to pay an annual tax of GHC2,000.00.

The levy is also imposed on vehicles existing prior to the passage of the Law with the cubic centimetres.

Also, vehicles whose roadworthiness certificates had already been renewed prior to the passage of this Law in 2018 will start paying the levy from their next renewal date in 2019.

He said the DVLA was in a process of modernising the acquisition of a driver’s licenses at their newly established ‘Prestige Centre’ in a matter of an hour to do away with ‘Goro Boys’.

Mr Busia said the DVLA was undergoing innovative changes to ensure their mandate of promoting good driving standards in the country and ensure the use of road worthy vehicles on the roads and other public places was achieved.

The GJA would soon launch the 2018 awards ceremony to reward deserving journalists in the media landscape.

Source: GNA