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LICENSE TO BELIEVE AGAIN: How Ghana’s DVLA Went from “Come Tomorrow” to 24-Hour Statecraft

By Bismarck Kwesi Davis
31 Jul 2025
Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority

“Institutions don’t fail because they lack resources; they fail when leadership mistakes inertia for policy. Ghana is now proving that purposeful leadership resets more than systems—it resurrects trust.”

ACCRA — FROM PUNCHLINE TO PRIDE

Once upon a time in Accra, the most feared sentence a Ghanaian could hear wasn’t “You’ve been summoned to court.”

It was: “Go to DVLA.”
If you were lucky, you’d emerge three days later with your license and a mild case of existential crisis. If unlucky, you’d be stuck in a line that stretched longer than your favourite Nigerian movie trilogy.

But in 2025, something radical happened.

The jokes stopped. The queues thinned. The service sped up.

And Ghana’s DVLA—long considered a bureaucratic dinosaur—started to purr like a brand-new V8.

How?
One name: Julius Neequaye Kotey.
One architect: President John Dramani Mahama.

One national doctrine: 24-hour economy. Real-time governance. Youth-led execution.

A STRATEGIC RESET

In governance literature, “institutional decay” is often described as a quiet collapse: systems that work on paper but fail in practice. Ghana’s DVLA was a textbook example. Until Mahama’s second coming.

Appointing Julius Kotey as CEO in January 2025, Mahama handed the DVLA over to a policy-hardened technocrat with a no-nonsense charm and a spreadsheet for a brain.

The results? Verified. Measurable. Transformational.

FROM TRAFFIC TO TECH

1. Digital “Drive From Port” (DP) Stickers – Bye Bye, Aluminium Chaos

From August 1, 2025, DVLA officially retired the chaotic aluminium DP plates. Instead, every vehicle cleared from Tema or Takoradi now gets a digital sticker, complete with security QR codes and embedded insurance validation—powered by a partnership with SIC.

The new system is faster than your average port bribe and smarter than your favourite goro boy.

2. Not a Myth Anymore

In May 2025, DVLA opened an ultra-modern centre at Adenta, Accra—the first public agency in Ghana to offer round-the-clock operations. Citizens can now renew their licenses at 2:00 AM, grab kelewele at 2:15, and still make it to work the next morning.

Night owls rejoice.

3. Diaspora Access – Ghana Licenses in London, Legally

Tired of fake Ghana licenses being printed in barber shops across Europe, DVLA is fighting back—with six international offices launching in London, Hamburg, Dubai, Toronto, Washington, and Johannesburg.

Now, the Ghanaian abroad can renew a license without renewing trauma.

4. The Bole Office Miracle

In Bole, Northern Ghana, locals once traveled six hours to Tamale for vehicle services. In 2025, DVLA built them a fully functional branch—complete with biometric gear, inspection bays, and polite officers who call you “sir” instead of “next.”

One teacher whispered, “If DVLA can come to Bole, then surely God is working overtime.”

KUMASI’S NIGHT SHIFT SURPRISE

In March 2025, the Ahodwo branch of DVLA launched a 24-hour pilot.

At 9:30 PM, Adwoa Mensimah, a pharmacy assistant and mother of two, walked in with a license renewal form in one hand and her baby in the other. She was out by 10:15 PM—with her biometric done and receipt sent to her phone.“I didn’t even bribe anybody,” she said, eyes wide in disbelief.

GLOBAL BENCHMARKS

And unlike in some countries, no goats were sacrificed in the process.

THE MAHAMA DOCTRINE: YOUTH + SYSTEMS = TRUST

President Mahama’s quiet brilliance lies in what he doesn’t do. He doesn’t micro-manage. He entrusts. Under his second administration, a wave of young CEOs have transformed Ghanaian institutions from bureaucratic fossils to 24-hour frontliners.

Mahama didn’t just appoint Julius Kotey. He unleashed him. And Kotey? He delivered.

FROM PILOT TO POLICY

Institutionalize 24-hour DVLA services across all regions and integrate their databases with:

This holistic “GovLink” would ensure real-time licensing, monitoring, and enforcement—propelling Ghana into a future where policy isn’t just passed, it’s experienced.

THE TREE THAT BLOOMS AT MIDNIGHT

In Ghanaian lore, trees are sacred: rooted, patient, and sheltering. DVLA under Kotey is that tree—planted at midnight, growing in silence, now sheltering citizens who never thought they’d trust a public agency again.

It is also the owl that never sleeps. Because in Ghana, people work all hours. And now, their government does too.

LICENSE TO BELIEVE AGAIN

This isn’t a tech upgrade. It’s a governance resurrection.

It isn’t just a new DVLA. It’s a new relationship between citizen and state.

Where there was once frustration, there is now efficiency.

Where there were bribes, there are QR codes.
Where there was silence, there is a humming 24-hour service centre in Adenta—and a hopeful mother in Kumasi smiling in the dark.

Ghana’s DVLA isn’t issuing licenses anymore.

It’s issuing belief.

References

COO - Diamond Institute and Zealots Ghana International Forum

Disclaimer: "The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect ModernGhana official position. ModernGhana will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements in the contributions or columns here."

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