Many driving without licence in Hagen

MANY motorists in the Highlands region are driving without valid drivers’ licences after the region’s only computerised drivers licensing system in Mt Hagen broke down five months ago.
Some of the senior police traffic officers said the Western Highlands provincial government should be held responsible if serious road accident occur.
The officers said authorities at the traffic registry had failed to fix the machine and install films for cameras and that currently, drivers were driving with just receipts of payments for licence renewals and new ones.
The officers asked what would happen if a fatal accident occurred when a driver was driving with a receipt.
The officers said the provincial government would be held accountable for every accident because it had failed to fix up the problem.
They said many drivers were using duplicated receipts to drive PMVs and trucks as police check points could not identify the perpetrators.
The officers said many could produce photocopy of the receipt and drive any vehicle or truck because there was no way that a driver could be identified.
They said the service caters for drivers in Western Highlands, Southern Highlands, Simbu and Enga provinces, and it is very important for the system to get fixed.
Meanwhile, Hicom Limited, the company which has been servicing the machine for the past five years, said the firm would only run new films and service the equipment if the provincial government paid a K16,000 quotations it had submitted.
John Mansongke, managing director of Hicom Limited, said the amount was for consumables like inks, films and service for the whole year.
He said there were some people “playing politics” while the innocent people were suffering.