By NATARIO McKENZIE
Tribune Business Reporter
nmckenzie@tribunemdia.net
The Road Traffic Department’s top executive yesterday pledged it will “burn the midnight oil” to alleviate a massive licensing backlog caused by March being commercial vehicle month.
Ross Smith, the Department’s controller, acknowledged that it was “facing some challenges” due to the sheer volume of vehicles arriving for their annual inspection and licensing.
This has combined with Road Traffic’s new computer registration system to produce what one businessman yesterday described as “constant chaos” over the past week as March comes to a close.
Tribune Business was informed by several sources that the Road Traffic Department has run out of the new vehicle license plates on several occasions.
Auto dealers are understood to have encountered delays in having leased vehicles licensed and inspected, causing problems when it comes to returning them to clients.
And the Government’s desire to close off tax loopholes has added to the bureaucracy, with companies needing to prove they have paid Business License fee and National Insurance Board (NIB) contributions before their vehicles are inspected.
“We are facing some challenges but it’s nothing that we can’t handle,” Mr Smith reassured yesterday. “We are prepare to work overtime to ensure that we meet all deadlines. That is what we are doing.”
He added that the Department had extended its operating hours to 12.30am to facilitate vehicle licensing and inspection, but acknowledged that the back-up was due in large part to the fact that March is the month for company vehicles.
“With a new system in place, and trying to input all of that information about every company, it can be very challenging. We are prepared to work overtime to ensure that we meet the deadline and get everyone covered,” Mr Smith told this newspaper.
Bahamas Bus & Truck’s general manager, Ben Albury, told Tribune Business: “It just feels like constant chaos. Several times they have run out of license plates. I have had a gentleman there to license a vehicle. He’s been there since 10am in the morning and it’s mid-afternoon, and he’s still there.
“The problem, too, I feel is that there is a lack of training. No one seems to understand what the requirements are. You’re back and forth for information that should or shouldn’t be provided. For some other dealers they’re requiring certain information, and for me it’s something else.
“We knew that transferring to the new system there should be improvement, but this has been months now. Bureaucracy is something that we are not short of in this country.”
A letter writer, Simon Rodehn, recently expressed similar frustration with the documentation requirements to license six commercial vehicles.
In his letter to The Tribune, Mr Rodehn said: “Road Traffic officials tell me that in order to license my vehicles I need to prove all the things I needed to prove for my Business License all over again, even though I have provided them with my Business License, including whether I have paid my employees’ National Insurance.
“I am in no frame of mind to go through the list of things they need just to pay them a considerable amount (+$3,000) in license fees to use my vehicles on the road. This is outrageously stupid that our Government, which is the epitome of inefficiency and non-productivity, should introduce redundant waste of time systems that do nothing other than tie business people up in red tape to collect fees.”
Mr Smith told this newspaper yesterday: “If you own a business you have to bring in a Business License. You can’t just come in and say that you are a business. We are pushing people to ensure that they bring in those supporting documents.”
The manufacturing of vehicle license plates will now be done by inmates at the Bahamas Department of Corrections, in a bid to address shortages and reduce costs.
At a press conference yesterday morning on the issue, Mr Smith said: “I believe there’s going to be significant savings; one because we have up-to-date equipment, not the old antiquated equipment.
“And so once you have equipment that is more up to date, 21st century focused, we should be able to produce plates much cheaper than we ordinarily produce them. With the actual raw material being used, along with the labour, we should be well under $10 for the production of plates.”
Comments
Sickened 7 years, 7 months ago
Again we have a case of no planning and no common sense. How can there be such a huge backlog. Surely they know EXACTLY how many cars need renewed every month (give or take a couple of hundred max). For every 100 people they underestimate this equates to an average of 5 extra people standing in line a day - not a big deal, and the same number of license plates needed. These plates can not possible cost more than $10 a set. Do you mean to tell me that they order these plates on a weekly or monthly basis? They cannot be that incompetent.
We need to get rid of this government... but more importantly we need to get rid of the permanent secretaries and the heads of each and every one of these poorly run departments.
Franklyn 7 years, 7 months ago
...what will sicken you more is: a proven and fully funded solution was offered and rejected by the department - The system offered is used in hundreds of countries throughout the world and was being offered at no cost to the Bahamas Government RTD by UTSCH Bahamas.
The proposed Vehicle Plates would include these elements: coats of arms, holograms, holographic hot stamping foil, laser engraving, coding and UV marking - making the plates virtually impossible to fraud.
With the plate manufacturing facilities here in The Bahamas a reliable and uninterrupted delivery of plate to vehicle owners would be in as little as (6 minutes) from a secure environment and with little to no possibility of exposure to corruption at all stage of the manufacturing and delivery stages.
Franklyn 7 years, 7 months ago
Get ready for more chaos, confusion and delays ...not to mansion wasted public funds. The system being proposed (if I am correct and if it is ever implemented) will produce flat vehicle license plates that are different from the traditional plates now in circulation, and will no longer have the embossed plate numbers.
Quoting Mr. Smith “And so once you have equipment that is more up to date, 21st century focused, we should be able to produce plates much cheaper than we ordinarily produce them". But are we making One step forward, two steps back considering that flat plates have a shorter life usage, “fake-looking” and is difficult to read by law enforcement plate recognition equipment.
And to take a page from the past experiences at the RTD - the company providing the 21st century focused equipment (John R Wald Inc.) is not the manufacture of the equipment that the department is hell-bent on investing. But the abstinence involves in the path now being taken by the Department, may concern much more than making the department more efficient but more to do with egos and somebody's pocket.
Reports from some states also contradict the Department claim of the technology being introduce should make the cost of plates cheaper: Under the heading - Digital plates have actually increased costs for some states. A 2004 analysis by the Florida legislature for its specialty plates program noted that some states have experienced increased costs after moving to digital plates, and cited as an example Indiana, whose costs increased by 46% after they switched to digital plates. And a proposal from 3M — the dominant manufacturer of digital license plate systems in the U.S. — for converting Florida’s operation to digital plate production would have increased the state’s per-plate costs at least 30%.
The prediction for this experimentation is – equipment failure due to poor maintenance in the short period and lack of dedication and commitment to the process in the short to medium period. Because of the multi-agency involvement, and changing priorities in budgets there is a strong likelihood that the program will fail and the public will bearer the frustration of a process that is so simple.
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