The Chief Executive Officer of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), Julius Neequaye Kotey, has disclosed that about five per cent of vehicle number plates currently in use across Ghana are fake.
Speaking on TV3 on Sunday, January 25, Mr. Kotey said the situation poses a serious security concern and underscores the need to centralise the embossing of vehicle number plates under a single, authorised entity.
According to him, number plates are official security documents and should not be produced indiscriminately.
“In terms of security, it will help the Ghanaian consumer. You don’t just allow anyone, anywhere to emboss number plates. That number plate you are embossing is a security document, so we need to be cautious and circumspect about who embosses number plates and for whom,” he said.
Mr. Kotey revealed that DVLA data shows nearly five per cent of vehicles captured in the authority’s system are operating with fake number plates acquired through various illegal means.
He explained that some fraudsters exploit vehicles that have been involved in accidents and are beyond repair by copying their registration numbers and embossing duplicate plates for other vehicles.
“There are several ways they get the number plates. Sometimes they move through police stations. Cars involved in accidents that are beyond repair they take their numbers and go and emboss. They also go to farmlands where farm equipment doesn’t return to the streets and emboss those plates. Others photocopy customs documents and use the same numbers on vehicles that did not pay duty,” he explained.
To address the problem, Mr. Kotey announced that the DVLA is introducing new number plates embedded with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips to help detect and prevent cloning.
“We’re going to do away with all this. There’s a cloning detector as part of the system. RFID billboards will be mounted on various highways. When you pass with a number plate that is not in our system, it sends a signal to our command centre,” he said.
He added that the new RFID-enabled plates will also integrate with the upcoming toll booth system being developed in collaboration with the Ghana Highway Authority.
“The new toll booth is coming. We are in touch with the Ghana Highway Authority, and we need RFID chip-embedded number plates to be able to communicate with the toll system that is coming,” Mr. Kotey noted.
