Licensing behind the times

“Staff shortages have also hampered proper policing of the nation’s roads and contributed to the indiscipline among motorists.

“You can imagine how difficult it is to actually track or manage 600,000 plus vehicles when we don’t know exactly how many vehicles are on our roads, this because of a lack of technology.” That statement was reportedly made by Ruben Cato, Transport Commissioner, on March 17, 2010 (seven years ago), when he appeared before a Joint Select Committee of Parliament.

He traced the problems in the Licensing Division, located on the same compound since 1951, to the system not keeping pace with development and with the increase in the number of imported vehicles.

He disclosed that the computer system previously used was obsolete and “crashed” in 1999 because it was an old mainframe system and non-compliant.

Chairman of the committee, Deputy Speaker Pennelope Beckles, asked why no action was taken to deal with this and Cato said several attempts were made to modernise and to computerise the division but governments came and went and attempts at modernising and computerising the system had failed for one reason or another.

He said the last attempt was made through the United Nations Development Programme but this effort ended up being a matter before the court. He said the division was now partnering with the Canadian Government to achieve efficiency in the organisation.

“That process is going smoothly as far as I am aware. We hope that before June or July (of 2010) legislation will come before Parliament to bring about necessary changes in the sector,” Cato said.

After taking office in 2007, Cato has produced 27 policy circulars.

“There were policies in place but these were ad hoc. There was no way you could discipline anyone because there was no policy related to any particular function.” He identified a human resource challenge with people being promoted to the post of supervisor without receiving the necessary training. Cato said his office and the ministry have been recommending appropriate staff training programmes for some time but without success. “The ministry was not responsible for hiring or firing and there continues to be insufficient licensing officers,” he said.

He admitted that staff shortages are plaguing the division and numerous recommendations have been made for an increase in staff but without any positive response from the Personnel Department.

In an article published in the November 14, 2011, Express, Cato was reported to have said that since 1955, there had been at least five attempts to modernise and computerise the division and that the current initiative was at a crawl if not a standstill. He called for a speeding-up of the exercise.

On February 13, speaking at the opening cremony of the new Licensing Headquarters at Frederick Settlement, Caroni, Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan said the new state-of-the-art building offers first class technology and will provide new and convenient services to the public, alleviating the long-standing complaints from customers over poor service delivery.

On the legislative side, the minister gave the assurance that 2017 would see the introduction of legislation for the establishment of the Motor Vehicle Authority which will guide the administration of driving permit issuance, vehicle registration and owner certification, and an upgrade process including the computerisation of records.

However, no specific mention was made of the present status of the modernisation and computerisation of the Transport Authority’s records which, in my opinion, should be a priority of the Government.

But is it? How long again do we have to wait?