The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) has announced plans to decentralise the printing of driver’s licences across its offices nationwide as part of efforts to end months-long delays faced by applicants.

The Authority said the decentralisation programme would allow its offices to print licences locally, ending the current reliance on a centralised printing point at the head office. The existing system has resulted in delays of up to seven months and, in some cases, as long as a year.

The disclosure was made at the commissioning of a new DVLA office at Amrahia in the Adenta Municipality.

Speaking at the ceremony on Friday, August 21, DVLA Chief Executive, Julius Neequaye Kotey, said the decentralised system would allow licences to be printed at individual offices, although instant printing would initially apply only to replacement cards.

He explained that applicants for new licences would still have to complete the mandatory three-month licensing process before receiving their cards.

“Every station, every office in Ghana, we have one centralised point to print licence forms. And that is the head office. We have only two machines printing for the whole of Ghana. Now we are doing decentralisation so that every office of the authority of DVLA can print its own licence. Then the situation where one person comes to buy a licence for one year, before he or she gets it, should be a thing of the past.

“Every office will now print, but we are printing instantly, for only replacement of cards. When your six years have expired, we will now print for you instantly. But when you are coming for a new licence, you have to go through the three months before you get your card. That is ISO; it goes beyond Ghana. It is an international standard.”