The Chief Executive Officer of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), Julius Neequaye Kotey, has revealed that thousands of excavators linked to illegal mining activities, popularly known as galamsey, were previously not captured in the Authority’s database.

He explained that none of the excavators seized during anti-galamsey operations had been properly registered.

“If you buy a vehicle, before you use it, you must register it; it’s part of our law. But these excavators had no number plates. If they had registered them, we would have been able to trace the owners and the police could arrest them,” Mr Kotey said.

According to him, the failure to register the machines was deliberate, as owners sought to avoid being traced and held accountable.

To address the loophole, the DVLA introduced a new policy requiring all excavators to be registered directly from the ports.

Within two weeks of implementation, more than 1,000 newly imported excavators were registered, while an additional 5,000 existing machines were captured after a two-week ultimatum.

Mr Kotey disclosed that about 3,000 unregistered excavators have since been seized and are currently parked at the VALCO compound in Tema.

He made these revelations in an interview with Channel One TV.