<<Print>>

It has emerged that some middlemen, popularly called ‘Goro’ Boys operating around the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) have their own machines (computers) they use for the printing of fake roadworthy stickers for their clients.

All they demand from their customers, are their names, the vehicle number, colour and the year of manufacture.

Apart from some people approaching them to process their documents for them, their modus operandi is that they lure desperate people who come to the DVLA offices or those in queue at DVLA offices and demand an amount ranging between GHC 70 and GH¢200 as processing fee and provide the stickers to their clients within 15 minutes.

The Nima Divisional Motor Transport and Traffic Unit (MTTU) Commander, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Hajia Sa-ada Mustapha Mohammed, revealed this to The Ghanaian Times yesterday following the arrest of three ‘Goro’ Boys for their alleged involvement in the fake sticker scam.

The arrest of the three, she said, followed an exercise conducted to arrest drivers using fake stickers.

In all, she said, 52 drivers were arrested in four separate operations within a month and were consequently arraigned before the court.

ASP Muhammed explained that when the drivers were interrogated, they led the police to arrest the three ‘Goro’ Boys who admitted that they were in a business with some people who they however, failed to mention.

She asked the public to go through the right process to acquire documents for their vehicles, saying apart from the middlemen posing nuisance to DVLA, they also put vehicle owners to danger.

‘They also drain the state of money which should have been used to undertake developmental projects.

She said that over GH¢30, 000 was realised as court fines.

The Ghanaian Times yesterday reported that middlemen at the DVLA offices near the 37 Military Hospital in Accra said they should not be blamed for their involvement in the processing of driving licences and roadworthy stickers at the Authority.

The middlemen popularly called ‘Goro’ Boys said those who approached them cited bureaucracy and undue delay which forced them to fall on them for assistance and since that was where they (‘Goro’ Boys) get their daily bread, they had no option but to help them.

But DVLA warned that it would clamp down on them this month. The Chief Executive Officer of the Authority, Mr. Rudolph P. K. Beckley, told our reporter that activities of such unscrupulous people, including women had been a headache to the Authority, warning that his outfit was determined to flush them out.