The Deputy Minister of Transport, Nii Kwartei Titus-Glover, is being untruthful with his claim that his ministry was not kept in the know regarding the introduction of a mandatory first aid kit fee by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), David Agbee, the Executive Director of the Ghana Institute of Governance and Security (GIGS), has said.

There has been controversy since the DVLA’s announcement this week, of a mandatory GHS108 fee for First Aid boxes as part of vehicle registration, with drivers, car owners, opposition MPs, and the general public voicing their disapproval.

The fee has since been suspended but Mr Titus-Glover, speaking on Class91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast Show (EBS) on Thursday, 4 January 2018 said the Authority cannot arbitrarily impose costs on vehicle owners, adding that his Ministry was not consulted before the decision was made.

But Mr Agbee is not convinced by the Deputy Minister’s explanations given governance procedures require managers of state agencies to consult and get the greenlight from their respective ministries before coming out with major decisions. He said such consultations do take a considerable amount of time and approval is only granted when all aspects including procurement, budgeting, and thorough deliberations with stakeholders have been finalised.

“So, if it happens that a state agency is bringing up a policy and you hear a minister saying he knows nothing about it, the long and short of it is that the minister wants to throw dust into people’s eyes,” Mr Agbee said on Accra News on Thursday.

According to him, the minister is affecting ignorance about the first aid kit fee because it has turned out to be unpopular among Ghanaians.

“It can never be true that the DVLA got up one day and decided to introduce a mandatory first aid kit for drivers,” added the governance analyst. “That can never happen.”

He said it would have been “very surprising” were that to be the case and the head of the DVLA would have long been fired, insisting government had “tested the waters” with the fee and realising the general opposition to it, has now withdrawn it in order not to harm its political fortunes.