DVLA’s automation is timely
The news that the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) has launched an automated system that allows the public to access its services from the comfort of their homes and offices is laudable. Though coming a bit late in a technological era, it must be seen as progressive and given the necessary purge to function well.
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As my curiosity piqued, I tried over the weekend to test the system by logging on to the DVLA’s website. My Google search popped up a few links and so I clicked on a couple that presented a similarity to what I was looking for. My first click took me to a link for “E-services portal of the Government of Ghana.”
At that point, I thought a bit more of simplification was going to be necessary for a more direct and straightforward access. I clicked on another link which took me to exactly what I was looking for, and in line with a news item that the DVLA had launched a new automation system.
According to the news publication which appeared in the Daily Graphic of February 17, 2014, the new automation system allows individuals and corporate bodies that plan to renew their licenses or undertake activities relating to driving licensing and vehicle registration to be able to log on to the authority’s website.
Without doubt, this new process is going to make life easier for drivers across the country. The DVLA is one place I personally dread going. No wonder their actions and inactions have succeeded in creating a lane for middlemen to hang around their premises to offer help to clients who cannot afford precious hours just going through a straightforward procedure such as renewing a driver’s license or a roadworthy certificate.
As it is, one does not even have to waste time in traffic just to get to whichever offices of the DVLA to fish out information or get some service done. Whether it is the fees one needs to be sure of, or the type of driver’s license and the information needed to complete it, they are all available at the click of a button.
The unproductive hours one used to waste at the main office of the DVLA in Accra purely for a driver’s license renewal produced tin gods within the authority’s system as well as middlemen who ended up as cheaters. Taking the unproductive process of renewing a driver’s license as per the system I used for my four year renewal last year, one wonders how and why we have lived with it all this time. Apart from the number of hours one spent on the process and considering the fact of losing valuable productive hours, perhaps it is time to look into a 10 year or for life license so long as the police do their checks well.
Going through the backwards and forwards, from one office to the other to get a form signed or approved, the long queues of waiting for a one minute eye test which sometimes made one wonder if anyone was ever failed a license because of eye problem, one realises that we laden ourselves with unnecessary layers which sometimes enslave us in the long run.
We go through the same unnecessary and ever winding procedure for the renewal of road worthy certificates under the old system. Just a few months ago, I had to renew my certificate at the Weija offices of the DVLA. It was my first time since the decentralisation exercise of the DVLA. I thought the purpose of decentralisation was to quicken the pace of business and so I estimated the time I was going to get out of the place. I was disappointed.
Having waited in a long vehicular queue which spilled over onto the main street, one eventually had to go and wait in a non-functional waiting room while the tests and issuance of the certificate went on. The time spent and the inconvenience of waiting in a crowded waiting room with insufficient chairs and no air conditioner was not the best. These are some of the things that call for middlemen in the system but no, we are moving on.
At this point, one would take the acting Chief Executive of the DVLA by his words when he spoke at the official launch of the automation and only hope that the process would “transform the institution into a highly effective organisation through business innovation, best practices and re-engineering”.
Much as one wishes the automation to re-engineer procedures and processes lead to a new work flow that prevents fraud and revenue leakages to work well, one also hopes that the “powers” of the tin gods created by the old order, especially at the head office, would be broken for good.
The old system certainly created a lot of inefficiencies, unnecessary bureaucracy resulting in time wasting as a result of which middlemen found room to thrive, leading to exploitation. As users of their services, one would only wish the DVLA well and hope the automation grows into maturity with more innovations added to make clients happy to do business with them.