The Chief Executive Officer of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA), Julius Neequaye Kotey has alleged that a “gentleman” he does not know and has not met before attempted to bribe him with cash of GH¢4million to influence him from introducing stickers in place of plates for the “Drive from Port” – DP – new vehicle numbers issued at the ports.
Kotey in a media interview on Angel TV in Accra [Watch attached video below] had alleged that the individual had tried to influence him to abandon the initiative, which was to combat vehicle-related fraud in terms of DP number plate issuance by the DVLA at the port.
Citinewsroom reports that in a response to the allegation, the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) has extended an invitation to the DVLA boss for him to provide further and better particulars about the said attempted bribe and to verify the allegation and identify those purportedly involved in the cash bribery attempt.
Meanwhile, in a separate matter, the OSP has reportedly also launched an investigation into a sitting member of the Council of State over suspected corruption and corruption-related offences linked to gold trading, reports Citinewsroom.
The report quotes sources at the OSP indicating that the probe focuses on claims that the Council of State member allegedly leveraged his position to influence the granting of a gold licence to a company with which he reportedly has undisclosed business interests.
DVLA boss’s bribery allegation
Speaking in the Angel TV interview, the DVLA boss Julius Neequaye Kotey said when he took office in February 2025, he realised that the figures being reported by DVLA officials from the port as vehicles issued with DP plates were too low.
The DP plates are normally issued to vehicles at the port and expires in two weeks after issuance. It is to aid in the driving of the vehicle from the port to the importers destination of choice and that is why it has a duration of only two weeks.
Mr Kotey told Angle TV that some people were also duplicating numbers or were using same number plates to clear several vehicles from the port simply because there was nothing to scan to determine if similar numbers had already been used to get vehicles out of the port.
He said there was an earlier arrangement that gave contracts to companies, and the companies resorted to issuing the number plates directly to import agents, so DVLA officers at the gate had no way of verifying the authenticity of the plates.
He said reports in January showed that officials from DVLA at the port were recording 1800 to 2000 as vehicles cleared from the port and issued with DP plates on a monthly basis.
Mr Kotey said he visited the port in March 2025 to “shake” the officers, and at the end of March, the report showed a total of 5400 vehicles had been cleared from the port and issued with DP plates, showing a significant increase from what had been reported in previous months and years.
Armed with this information, he went there again and threatened to set up cameras; this time around the figure increased from 5400 to 7400.
That was when “I took a bold decision that we are going to change and use the DP sticker” after the Cabinet and the sector minister had approved the stickers to be used in place of plates.
“And last month [September], I can boldly tell you, that we did 14,701 from the 1800 previous figure. It tells you that in the past, about 10,000 to 12,000 plates were being stolen, about GH¢8million were being stolen into people’s pockets,” every month, he said.
“And when I started this thing, a gentleman called me, and I don’t even know where that gentleman is from, whether it was a trap or not, he brought a bribe of GH¢4million [cash]” to influence him to stop introducing the DP sticker.
He said the gentleman and some others visited him at his office.
As to why he did not report it at the time, Mr Kotey claimed he didn’t want to “tarnish” the image of DVLA.
Watch the video below
source: Graphic Online
