Motorists lament procuring motor vehicle licences

May 14, 2009 News

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Just over a month remains for motorists to procure their computerised Motor Vehicle Licence at the Smyth Street, Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) office.
The deadline for procurement is currently June 23, 2009. However motorists are complaining that GRA has not made the task easy. They say that they are made to go through a torturous ordeal. Measures must be put in place to improve the way the process is done, they said.
The GRA, this year, instituted a new plan, which requires that motorists in the city as well as those as far as East Bank Essequibo, the East and West Bank of Demerara and the East and West Coast of Demerara purchase their licence at the GRA Smyth Street Office.
GRA Commissioner General, Khurshid Sattaur, in a release on April 3, last, pointed out that with the newly implemented licensing system vehicle owners could acquire their licence in as little as five minutes.
GRA had outlined that in order for motorists to collect their licences they have to present their Tax Identification Number (TIN), last year’s motor vehicle licence, road certificate licence, insurance and registration.
The sale of licence commenced in March and saw motorists queuing up in long lines at the Smyth Street office. Up to yesterday although the lines are much shorter motorists were still complaining that the process is too exhausting.
On Wednesday, one motorist recounted that he visited the Licence Office around 10:00hours with the intention to purchase his licence, but was not able to complete the process until after 16:00 hours.
Reflecting on the gruelling experience, the motorist said that he did not expect to have such a long wait, as there were just about 40 persons in the line, which started from inside the building and extended outside under a shed.
The man, who works at a private sector entity, said that he had to request time off to visit the office expecting that he would have been able to return to work by noon. He related that a security officer had informed him that the GRA clerks were working continuously until 17:00 hours to facilitate the process.
A staffer of this newspaper who had the same experience shared the motorist’s sentiments.
And their expectations were crushed when at around 11:45 hours a security officer informed that the office was closing off for lunch.
Unwilling to even consider returning another day the motorist and several others decided to wait in line until the GRA clerks resumed their operation.
And it was not until 14:00 hours that the line started moving again when a security officer requested that four persons enter at a time.
Inside of the building there were many lines that persons had joined to procure different types of licences.
The line dedicated for motor vehicle licences, however, continued to move at snail’s pace, this motorist said. And again although the line seemed so manageable motorists were made to wait for over one hour in line before being tended to.
There was no doubt that their irritability was being boosted by the fact that the room was unbearably hot, as the three Air Conditioning Units installed there appeared to be out of order as were the two fans placed at strategic points.
There were no seats to accommodate persons in the line either. After being attended to separately by a clerk who simply examined their vehicle registration, the motorists were asked to join a line to ‘cashier four’ to pay.
But it was not after waiting in that line for a while that the motorists realised that there was a notice indicating that that cashier’s operation was closed. A check of the time revealed that it was just about 15:15hours at that time.
As such the persons in lane four were forced to compete with persons in lane three to be attended to by cashier three. Cashier Three’s work was very simple as she merely had to examine the registration, previous motor vehicle licence and fitness before printing out the new-style licence and accepting the necessary payment, a process which in fact did take about five minutes.
In the individual case of the motorists, the cashier did not request any TIN or insurance, documents that were deemed necessary to procure the licence.
Sattaur had stated in his April 3 release that once the new system is perfected, the License Revenue Office would have full control over who gets license since the license itself is linked to the vehicle registered.
“If you are not registered in the system then you cannot get a license,” Mr. Sattaur had pointed out. As such he had noted that motor vehicle owners are encouraged to bring the relevant source documents, to get registered, and acquire their license.
The Commissioner-General further stated that the new system would serve to reassure the general public of GRA’s commitment to them by ensuring that people, who have illegal vehicles, finally pay taxes on them, thus levelling the playing field for all Guyanese.
According to Sattaur the new system was implemented because the old manual system was prone to a huge amount of irregularities due to people being unscrupulous, bringing vehicles across the borders from Brazil and Suriname, changing ownership of vehicles not properly registered, and changing engines, chassis, colours and categories.
The Commissioner-General had also alluded to a scam, which has been occurring over the years, in which unscrupulous persons have been printing official GRA licenses and selling them for a small amount.
He had expressed optimistic that the new system would eliminate such illegal practices, since it has many security features, which will make it almost impossible to duplicate.

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