A renowned legal scholar and fellow of CDD-Ghana, Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, has urged the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) to concentrate its efforts on improving road safety within Ghana rather than extending licensing services overseas.
Reacting to recent clarifications by the DVLA on its collaboration with Ghanaian embassies to process licence renewals and International Driver’s Permits for citizens abroad, Professor Asare argued that the Authority’s core legal mandate is being diluted.
He stressed that the DVLA’s object clause is explicit and unambiguous, requiring it to promote good driving standards and ensure the use of roadworthy vehicles on Ghana’s roads.
According to him, this mandate places road safety at the heart of the Authority’s work, not the distribution or convenience of documents, whether at home or abroad.
“DVLA still faces significant challenges in meeting this objective, including licensing backlogs, weak enforcement of roadworthiness standards, limited data integration across agencies, and growing urban compliance pressures.”
CDD-Ghana Fellow and legal scholar, Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare
He argued that when these foundational duties remain unevenly executed, diverting time, training, and coordination toward overseas processing risks prioritizing convenience for citizens abroad while regulatory effectiveness at home still needs urgent strengthening.
In his view, the central policy question should not be how far the Authority can stretch its services geographically, but rather what more it can do domestically to make roads safer, drivers more competent, and vehicles fully compliant.
Tackling the Real Risks on Ghana’s Roads
The CDD-Ghana fellow identified reckless driving and poorly maintained vehicles as the dominant contributors to road crashes in the country. He said the DVLA has the institutional tools to respond more decisively by identifying repeat traffic offenders and requiring mandatory retraining before they are allowed back on the road.
He emphasized that deliberate and intelligent use of driver data would allow the Authority to detect patterns of dangerous conduct and intervene earlier, rather than reacting after lives have already been lost.
Stronger collaboration with the National Road Safety Authority, the Ghana Police Service, and insurance companies would help ensure that high-risk drivers do not exploit gaps between institutions. Such coordination, he argued, is how regulation prevents harm, rather than merely recording it after the fact.
Professor Asare also challenged the current approach to vehicle roadworthiness, describing it as overly ritualistic and insufficiently preventive. He said roadworthiness should operate as a continuous safety system rather than an annual formality.
By digitally logging every inspection and linking it to a vehicle’s chassis number, regulators could identify patterns of repeated failure and subject chronic offenders to closer scrutiny.
Vehicles that consistently fail inspections could then be flagged, while randomized roadside diagnostics would serve as a deterrent against habitual neglect.
He added that commercial vehicles, which spend significantly more time on the road, should logically undergo more frequent inspections than private cars. Integrating DVLA records with police and insurance databases would make non-compliance immediately visible, creating oversight that is active rather than symbolic.
Fixing the Domestic Service Experience
Beyond enforcement, Professor Asare said modernization efforts should begin where citizens experience the most frustration, which is within Ghana itself and not abroad.
He argued that licence renewals could be fully digitized, credentials made securely accessible on mobile platforms, and long queues eliminated through appointment systems and automation.
When compliance becomes simple, predictable, and transparent, he said citizens are far more likely to comply willingly, reducing the need for heavy handed enforcement.
The legal scholar stressed that regulation alone cannot transform behavior unless it is reinforced by culture. He observed that driving on Ghana’s roads increasingly feels unsafe, creating anxiety for both motorists and pedestrians.
To address this, he proposed that the DVLA partner with transport unions to deliver recurring safety education, encourage transport companies to compete based on safety records, and sustain public campaigns that frame careful driving as a shared civic responsibility.
Over time, the Democracy and Development Fellow at the Centre for Democratic Development said, road safety should become a social expectation rather than an occasional enforcement exercise.
Questioning Overseas Licensing Priorities
Professor Asare questioned whether overseas licence renewal genuinely addresses Ghana’s most pressing transport challenges. He noted that when Ghanaians abroad engage with issues at home, they rarely focus on administrative matters such as licence renewals, but rather on economic opportunity, national progress, and quality of life.
Renewing a licence in London or Toronto, he argued, does not in itself make roads safer in Accra, Kumasi, or Tamale. While acknowledging the intention to serve citizens abroad, he insisted that public institutions perform best when their energy is aligned with their legal mandate and core policy priorities.
Professor Asare concluded that the DVLA should resist exporting administrative convenience and instead commit fully to improving performance at home. Success, he said, should be measured by safer roads, better drivers, and compliant vehicles, not by the number of service windows opened abroad.
“If the Authority succeeds in making driving safer in Ghana, it will have fulfilled the law and saved lives,” he argued, adding that such an achievement would matter far more to citizens both at home and abroad than any overseas licensing arrangement.
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