Investigations by the Crusading Guide newspaper have established that even though the four custom-made Toyota Land Cruisers recently brought into the country by Ghana’s ex-President, Jerry John Rawlings, have duly been registered, the laid down procedures were violated.

Instead of Jerry Rawlings’ photograph appearing on (Registration) Forms ‘A’ of the Driver and Vehicle and Licensing Authority (DVLA) of the Ministry of Roads and Transport, those of Naval Captain Asubonteng (rtd) were rather fixed on all the four forms.

However, Mr J. J. Rawlings’ name appears on them (four Forms As) as the one applying for the registration of the vehicles. Among the procedures for the registration of the vehicles are that “the owner is required to fix his pictures on the Form A and append his signature at the bottom column provided”. Then again, when another person other than the owner presents the vehicle for registration, he is required to produce a letter from the owner authorizing him to register the vehicle on behalf of the owner and also fix two pictures of the owner on the Form A, but can sign the column provided for the owner of the registration”.

At the offices of the DVLA, Mr F. A. Oteng, Principal Technical Officer, told the Crusading Guide that he registered the vehicles. After underscoring thus, “Yes, I registered them; all documents are genuine”, he declined to answer further questions and referred the leader of our investigation team to his Chief Executive Officer.

When contacted, the Chief Executive, Joe Osei Owusu admitted “I have discovered that there has been some infractions in the rules and regulations. Not every part of the rule was followed”. On what happened, Osei Owusu disclosed that he was asked to verify whether some Land Cruisers had been registered and so he tried to go into the registration of all Toyota Land cruisers from the period that those vehicles came into the country. “I got the file and four of them were registered in the name of J.J. Rawlings but the pictures on the file were those of somebody else, instead of JJ’s picture, and that is where the problem is”, he disclosed.

Asked whether he had taken any action against the DVLA officials who had violated the vehicle registration procedures, the Chief Executive said “I have issued queries to the people responsible, requesting them to explain the anomaly”. He mentioned the officials as F.A. Oteng and E. K. Quartey. Regarding the sort of punishment that would be meted out to them if they were found guilty, Mr Joe Osei-Owusu maintained that “they would be dealt with in accordance with the Civil Laws of the country”.