The Chief Executive Officer of the Driver And Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) Kwesi Agyeman Busia has repelled suggestions that corruption has taken place during his 90-day tenure at the helm of the establishment.
Speaking to the DAILY GUIDE yesterday, he explained how he had to borrow money to prosecute projects of the Authority because the DVLA, as he said, does not receive subvention from the government for its activities.
The licensing project, the subject at the centre of the controversy in which the DVLA is embroiled, he said, “started in 2014 even before I got here. An amount of $22.6 million had been expended on it.”
Continuing he said “I, during my tenure, borrowed money to pay for the debt incurred through the contract. The plane is airborne and I have to ensure that it lands safely.” By this he is suggesting that the project was already operational and all he is doing is to facilitate its completion especially since so much had already been committed into it.
The project, he explained, is intended – when executed – to plug loopholes which 'goro boys' exploit to their advantage but to the disadvantage of stakeholders.
Since the DVLA does not receive subvention from the government, it is for him as CEO to seek sources of revenue for the Authority; he went on adding “we do not receive subvention from government and so what we have to do is sell our products to raise the necessary revenue to execute our projects.”
It is a 'done and sealed' assignment initiated even before he assumed the headship of the Authority and so the impression being created, he explained, is misplaced.
The security printing company, Margins, which works for the National Identification Authority (NIA) was engaged for it.
If there are questions to be posed about the project, interested persons may have to go back to 2014 when it all started and not, as he stated, “during my 90-day tenure.”
He contextualized the ongoing brouhaha in the light of the Director of Vehicle Licensing's public lecture goof when he stated that the DVLA was introducing a new driver's licence on July 18 2017 for which, as he put it, an apology was rendered to the Vice President and sector Minister since a formal discussion on the subject had not been done with the aforementioned persons before the premature announcement.
The media picked the issue up hence the brouhaha surrounding the subject in the manner being witnessed today in the public space.
At the time that the DVLA did not have a CEO, he said, the sector Minister was technically the man in charge of the place.
By A.R. Gomda
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