RTA to take on registration, driver licensing

MOTOR Vehicle Insurance Limited (MVIL)’s function to issue vehicle registration and driver licensing will be transferred to Road Traffic Authority (RTA) next month.
RTA chief executive officer Nelson Terema said this needed to be cleared for the public, specifically its customers, as there had been confusion regarding the roles played by both entities.
“After May, the functions will be smoothly transferred back to RTA as we are regulators of the two functions by law. MVIL’s core function is third party insurance only. There is a committee in place to discuss the issues during the transition period. Meetings are ongoing and will end in May,” he said.
Terema said under the old Traffic Rule Act, vehicle registration and licencing alone for National Capital District (NCD) was delegated to MVIL to perform on behalf of the Department of Transport. In 2014, through the institutional reform, RTA was established where all functions under the land transport division of the Department of Transport and the National Road Safety Council come under one umbrella which was RTA.
“Vehicle registration and driver licencing are currently under RTA according to Road Traffic Act 2014. When new rules and regulations came into effect in 2018, we allowed MVIL to implement the new rules and regulations which they implemented. However, when we asked them to collect revenue and remit to RTA, they failed do so, but they remit as dividend to the government.
“There must be partnership in place so that we delegate because the previous delegations have been revoked. The new road traffic acts supersedes previous arrangements,” he said.