Vehicle licence plates to be standardized

Cabinet has approved a recommendation made by the Guyana Revenue Authority to centralise the issuance of vehicle licence plates.

During a post cabinet briefing yesterday at the Ministry of the Presidency, Minister of Governance Raphael Trotman stated that there had been complaints from the security forces that anyone can manufacture licence places and as a result they are not uniform and do not necessarily keep up with regulations.

He said that additionally because it is an unregulated system many small-time manufacturers have fallen prey to requests to make fake plates.

Trotman told reporters that although the system will be centralized it will not be done without taking the views of the small manufacturers into consideration.

The new plate issuing system will be done so that the licence plate bears security features that are known to law enforcement. As it relates to government vehicles the minister said that it was agreed that the licence plates will bear the letters CRP for the Cooperative Republic of Guyana followed by a numbering system still to be worked out.

For many years now there have been appeals for a standardised system for the licence plates particularly because of the ubiquity of fake licence plates which were used on vehicles involved in transporting criminals.

Many crime investigations have collapsed after licence plates were found to be fake and therefore the vehicles could not be traced. In addition, many licence plates were of poor quality and would easily shatter in fender benders and other situations.

Many were also not properly marked so that licence numbers were hardly discernible.