Ghana Private Car Owners Association, GAPCO, has called on the Transport Ministry to direct the DVLA board to refund the purchase price of the compulsory first aid kit to any vehicle owner who so wishes to return the kit.

GAPCO is also calling for investigations into the whole saga. “We are demanding that proper investigations be carried out and the individual or group of people be named as well as appropriate sanctions applied to serve as a deterrent to others who may be nursing to implement similar exploitations.

A press statement signed by the Associations’ acting president, Ernest .B. Boateng, said it is scandalized and disgusted by the development involving the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority, DVLA.

“The Ghana Association of Private Car Owners (GAPCO) has followed the outcry of Ghanaian Car/Vehicle Owners who were forced by the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) during the registration of their vehicles to compulsorily acquire from them a first aid kit for their vehicles. As an upcoming Association that seeks to protect and promote the interest of all Ghanaians who owns private cars for their private use, we are scandalized & disgusted by this development…” the statement said.

Read the full statement below:

The Ghana Association of Private Car Owners (GAPCO) has followed the outcry of Ghanaian Car/Vehicle Owners who were forced by the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) during the registration of their vehicles to compulsorily acquire from them a first aid kit for their vehicles. As an upcoming Association that seeks to protect and promote the interest of all Ghanaians who owns private cars for their private use, we are scandalized & disgusted by this development for the following reasons:

1. The DVLA is not a market place where all sort of items a driver or car owner must have in his/her vehicle must be sold to the motoring public. We believe what the DVLA must do is to come and tell all Ghanaians as to what a standard first aid kit box must contain so that car owners would go to the open market to procure them for their vehicles.

The DVLA has no business procuring and compulsorily selling first aid kits to Ghanaian Car Owners at that exorbitant price to say the least. We were in this Country when the DVLA together with some stakeholders such as the NRSC and Police MTTD wanted to push down our throats this Compulsory Vehicle Towing Levy which Ghanaians rejected and our Government listened. I

f care is not taken, at the rate that the DVLA is going, very soon they will be compulsorily selling vehicle spare parts to Ghanaian Car Owners. These exploitations of Ghanaian Car Owners by the DVLA must stop.

2. Whiles we welcome the indefinate suspension of this compulsory first aid kit purchase by Ghanaian Car Owners by the Board of the DVLA as well as the Transport Ministry, we believe the mere suspension and apology is not enough.

The Transport Ministry and DVLA Board claims they were unaware of this compulsory selling of the first aid kit to Car Owners but somebody within the DVLA authorized the compulsory sale of these first aid kits to Ghanaians. We are demanding that proper investigations be carried out and the individual or group of people be named as well as appropraite sanctions applied to serve as a deterrent to others who may be nursing to implement similar exploitations.

3. We know that a good number of Ghanaian Car Owners as at the time of suspending this compulsory purchase have already bought these first aid kits against their will. We are demanding that any Ghanaian who purchased this first aid kit and wants to return it for a refund of his money ought to be given that opportunity. It is definitely not enough to just apologize, suspend it and leave it there.

We are calling on the Transport Ministry to direct the DVLA Board to refund the purchase price of the compulsory first aid kit to any vehicle owner who so wish to return the kit for his/her money.

4. Lastly, we would like to remind the DVLA Board and Management that they are there to serve the interest of all Ghanaian Car/Vehicle Owners and not to serve the interest of private pockets. They should desist from policies and programs that clearly seeks to exploit and extort money from Ghanaian Car/Vehicle Owners.

There is this general notion that if you own a private car for your own private use in Ghana, then you are rich and so every opportunity to extort money from you is justified. Our inefficient and sometimes non existent proper public transportation system is what forces most Ghanaians to save towards acquiring their own cars.

We acknowledge efforts being made by Government to improve our public transportation system so we can all park our cars and join same in the future but obviously vehicle ownership in this country is not a ticket for exploitation by the DVLA and other State Agencies. This must stop.

Signed

Ernest .B.Boateng (CEPM, Civil Rights Activist)

(Ag.National President-GAPCO)