Sheila Ponnie
Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The national ministry of transport aired its frustrations over its limited powers in licensing of cars and enforcing the laws, claiming its jurisdictions is restricted to handling just a fraction of vehicles in the country.
Addressing the Transitional National Legislative Assembly on Tuesday, the National Minister of Transport, Madut Biar, singled out the Ministry of Interior, particularly the Directorate of Traffic Police with blames, accusing it of micromanaging the licensing of cars especially the isuuance of logbooks, at the behest of procedures expected by the East African Community (EAC).
Biar told the lawmakers that he is facing a challenge trying to align with the East African Community that delinks the police with licensing of cars and issuance of logbooks.
“The question is now the police are the ones licensing the cars which is not the case in the East African Community even in the old Sudan,” he lamented.
According to Biar, the Ministry of Transport is currently left with only government and diplomatic cars under its control while the rest of the private cars are under the Ministry of Interior, particularly the directorate of traffic. The discussion to have the police surrender these to the ministry of transport have been unsuccessful, Biar said.
The minister recommended a legal resolution and promised to bring the matter before the legislative body.
He added that the East African Community members are always complaining about the police playing the roles of a regulator which amounts makes the body overstep its mandate.
“We are going to bring this to the August House because that needs a law,” said Biar.
Biar picked holes in the country’s logbook issuance policy being enforced by the traffic police. He argued that the document should be given once and not treated as a renewable one.
“Logbook is for the life of the car and the logbook is renewed on condition that if you want to change the property; somebody bought it, and then you have to change the logbook,” he said.
Biar was responding to a question by a lawmaker, Zakaria Makuer, who sought to know the logic behind the renewal of the document.
The National Assembly Speaker, Jemma Nunu Kumba, stated that the Chairperson of the finance had written a letter to the minister of interior requesting them to solve the issue.
“I have seen a copy of the letter written to the ministry of interior requesting them to implement the resolution,” Kumba said.
Kumba said the resolutions that were passed has been implemented by the minister of interior but the issue of transferring the responsibility to the ministry of transport is a process that requires amendments of some laws.
“You also need to know that all the logbooks that you have now have expiry dates and that means that you have to go and renew the old logbook that have the expiry dates and get the new one without expiry date,” she explained.
“The implementation of the resolution will need you to renew your logbook according to the resolutions made by the parliament and that is what you all have to know,” stated Kumba
Early this months, a lawmaker representing Ezo County in Western Equatoria State accused a police of using the inspection of driving license to extort motorists
Suzan Thomas alleged that traffic police in Juba are harassing motorists on the roads over needless driving test certification that expires in three months’ time. She also wondered how many times a person is require to process a driving license
Source: The City Review South Sudan
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