Mandatory Roadworthiness Certificate Without Vehicle Worthy Roads

The mandatory acquisition of certificates of roadworthiness by vehicle owners in Lagos has taken a life of its own since the beginning of 2022.

There had been warnings from the government for a while that everyone must be prepared to acquire the certificate annually, and the VIO people have been prepping to as usual take this as a war to ensure compliance.

Before now, at least in the last couple of years, vehicle owners pay and receive their road worthiness certificates at the local government or approved registration centres but such owners hardly report at the test locations to have their vehicles tested and certified.

Now the Lagos State government has decided that even though you pay for the certificate, it will not be released to you until the vehicle has been tested and approved to go on the roads.

It is a different kettle of fish entirely if the roads themselves are worthy or not. That’s another story, because most cars are not road worthy due to the poor state of the roads in the first place. People have asked when can we have good roads so that our cars can have longer lasting life and we do not need to spend so much fixing cars or having them break down regularly.

Another thing is that because of the poor state of the country’s economy and low standard of living, most of the vehicles on the roads are bought used, majority from Europe and North America and some of them have lasted much longer than the manufacturers intended them to. As a friend said, almost 90% of car owners in Nigeria do not know what it is like to buy a new car, except those purchased by corporate organisations for official use. In other words, many owners of vehicles only dream of the leather smell of the inside of a brand new car and hear of ‘tear rubber’ but have never seen any.

It is therefore not surprising that governments have reasons to ask vehicle owners to have them tested to ensure they are road worthy.

However, it has been a tale of woes from those who have tried to have their vehicles tested in Lagos in the last one month. It is either there is crowding at the test centres or the procedure is too cumbersome and people devote unbearable time and energy, leading to frustration and some vow not to show up or they threaten to confront VIO officers who accost them on the road, although I am told this is also a No-No because of the untold hardship you go through to sort yourself and vehicles out. I am also told that touting has started rearing its head around the test centres and this of course compounds the already bad situation.

The unsavory procedures and processes at the road worthy test centres have now prompted the State government to come up with new measures to make the tests friendlier, if there is any way that will be possible.

The State Ministry of Transportation has announced that following a review of the roadworthiness certificate process, it would now introduce a  booking system.

The Ministry said in a statement that, “Following the assessment of the ‘No Vehicle Inspection, No Road Worthiness Certificate’ Policy which commenced in January 2022, the Lagos State Government has introduced a Booking System to stem the surge recorded at some vehicle inspection centres”.

This means that vehicle inspection will now be based on scheduled appointments.

In addition, the 30 days window of inspection period has been reviewed to 60 days to reduce panic surge presently seen in some of the inspection test centres, and the backlog of already referred vehicles will be cleared between now and February 14 to give room for the Booking System to take off.

The State Commissioner for Transportation, Dr. Frederic Oladeinde, maintained in the statement that the policy which was introduced to clamp down on rickety vehicles responsible for incessant accidents, loss of lives and property within the metropolis, is also aimed at addressing the traffic congestion caused by several breakdown of vehicles due to the old testing process which he said is no longer sustainable.

Public transport owners are also not left behind in the new policy regime as some have had their vehicles already checked. Vehicle Inspection Officers are also engaging other commercial drivers at various motor parks for vehicle checks to further reduce convergence of vehicles at the inspection test centres.

In addition, the State Government is ramping up consultation with private partners with vehicle inspection facilities to increase the present existing 27 centres spread across the State, with 5 more mobile test centres already on the way.

The Commissioner commended motorists who have submitted to the inspection at the computerised centres across the State, noting that out of 26,442 that were inspected in January, 15,998 passed the tests, while 10,444 failed the minimum safety standard tests. Some of the vehicles that failed the tests have reported for a retest while others are expected.

While it is commendable that the government has risen quickly to address the issues arising from the cumbersome road worthiness testing, its response can also been seen as the usual government – both at federal and state levels – knee-jerk reactions to the various policies they introduce. They would have had time to test the implementation processes but always seem to prefer to use the populace as guinea pigs and do trial and error processes.

It is hoped that in the implementation process for the testing and applying compliance, efforts will be made to prevent touts from taking over while there should checks in place to ensure that unscrupulous government officials do not turn the project into the usual money-making venture for private pockets.

There is also the need for the testing teams, inspectors and compliance or enforcement officers are trained in good customer service so that innocent vehicle owners do not become preys to high-handed enforcement procedures.

IMAGE CREDIT:  VIS