Vehicles would soon be certified before sale to tackle auto theft in the country, Mr Joshua Opoku Agyemang, General Secretary, Vehicle and Assets Dealers Union (VADUG), has disclosed.
“Anybody that places an order on our platform will be duly scrutinised and certified by the Ghana Police Service (GPS), and as a union, we will scrutinise our members,” he added.
The General Secretary said this during an engagement between the Police Service and members of the VADUG in Accra on Wednesday.
The meeting, which was at the behest of the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Dr George Akuffo Dampare, was to deliberate on issues affecting their industry.
Some of the issues discussed were the Defective Vehicle (DV) plates, importation of stolen vehicles into the country,
Mr Agyemang said VADUC was developing a website in partnership with Pay Shine Limited, to ensure anybody who placed vehicle on the website for sale would be scrutinised before sale.
He said the wrong usage of the DV plate was a problem for the Union that needed to be tackled.
The General Secretary said the populace used the same DV plates as the vehicle dealers across the country, which had increased auto crimes, and made it difficult to track the perpetrators.
Mr Agyemang said, “the importation of stolen vehicles into the country, as a matter of fact, most of our membership do import vehicles from countries where we are not there physically; we get them to buy online, and we do the necessary paper checks and import.”
He said members of the union would partner the GPS to address the challenges in the automobile sector.
The DirectorGeneral of the Police Public Affairs Directorate, ACP Kwasi Ofori, said the police would form a technical group and inter-agency group to deal with issues affecting automobile sector by engaging them to ensure they did not fall victim to external and internal fraudulent activities.
He said the service of International Police (INTERPOL) would be employed to ensure the dealers were buying genuine vehicles that had not been listed as stolen.
He assured the members of VADUC of the Police Administration’s continuous support in ensuring safety.
The Chairman of VADUC, Mr Bernard Ntrikwah, said their major problem was the way they sold their cars, commending the Police Administration for the initiative and called for more of such collaboration.
Present were members of the Police Management Board including Director General (DG) of Administration, COP Christian Tetteh Yohuno, DG Motor Traffic and Transport Department, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP), Francis Aboagye Nyarko, and Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Faustina Andoh Kwofie, Director General of the Police Intelligence Department.
BY ANITA NYARKO-YIRENKYI
