The Joint Tax Board (JTB) has explained that the ongoing aggressive enforcement on Number Plates (NP) for motorcycles and Tricycles became necessary as a result of security considerations, not revenue generation as widely misunderstood by Operators.

According to the Federal Road Safety Corps Public Education Officer, Bisi Kazeem, the JTB made this known at its 144th meeting held in Abuja, on Monday with the theme; “Stakeholders Collaboration in Expanding the Tax Base Leveraging on Existing Database “.

In his presentation, the Corps Marshal,  Dr Boboye Oyeyemi, made it categorically clear that vehicle registration is a critical security requirement and should not be viewed as a revenue oriented gesture.

According to the Corps Marshal, “The provision of the law is clear on this, as such, all vehicles irrespective of their categories must be registered before operating on the road and the operators of such vehicles must also be licensed to drive before they mount the wheels”

“Vehicle registration is a critical security requirement that must not be viewed as a means of generating revenue alone. Revenue generation is an important factor in national development but the security of lives and properties is more important than expanding the revenue base.

There is no vehicle that is fully registered in Nigeria starting from Customs duties to vehicle registration that if stolen, cannot be retrieved at the point of registration through the instrumentalities of the National Vehicle Identification Scheme (NVIS) portal. This makes the registration very imperative and beneficial not only in the area of national security but also for the good of the vehicle owners.

On  the National Drivers License, Oyeyemi stated that in compliance with the provisions of the recently acceded United Nations Conventions, the Corps is working to model the National Drivers License (NDL) to accommodate all the features as provided by the conventions in line with globally acceptable standards.

To give a boost to the existing national database, the Federal Road Safety Corps has gone a bit further and almost through with processes that will necessitate that every applicant of the NDL must provide his/her National Identification Number (NIN) as a compulsory requirement for the acquisition of the NDL.

The JTB Chairman, Mr Tunde Fowler while speaking on the security implications of vehicle registration noted that the issue of revenue is important, but one must be secured to generate the revenue. It is common knowledge that security administration in every nation ranks high on the priority list than revenue generation.

The joint Tax Board agreed that with effect from January 1st, 2020, papers of vehicles with old number plates will not be renewed unless they upgrade to the new number plate so as to have their information captured in the NVIS database.

Aggressive Awareness/ publicity campaigns in various languages will commence with immediate effect so as to acquaint the motoring public with this development before the 1st January, 2020 old number plate enforcement date.