Increased prices of government documentation
The Joint Tax Board (JTB) has approved an approximately 50% increase in the price of driver’s licenses and number plates. This comes at a time when the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is adding to vehicle ownership costs by re-introducing its contentious tint permit. JTB officials claim the price increases are due to rising administrative and […]
The Joint Tax Board (JTB) has approved an approximately 50% increase in the price of driver’s licenses and number plates. This comes at a time when the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is adding to vehicle ownership costs by re-introducing its contentious tint permit. JTB officials claim the price increases are due to rising administrative and production costs. The issue of increasing the cost of driving licenses and number plates brings to light a seemingly disjointed approach to economic planning.
In recent times, the cost of obtaining almost every government document such as Nigerian passport, National identification cards, Certificates of Occupancy (C of O), planning permits, and court documents has increased exponentially and the inflationary effects are undeniable. It is essential that the FRSC and JTB argument be placed in proper perspective. Presently the federal government is on a borrowing spree the likes of which has not been witnessed before, and it is paradoxical that even with ceaseless borrowing the cost of providing government services to the general public continues to rise. Citizens are rightly querying what the purpose of borrowing is if not to alleviate their pressing problems?
The irony is that long after the expiration of any administration’s tenure, the public who have been burdened with increased payments for government services will further be burdened by being forced to make sacrifices in order to pay off the debts the administration incurred. The cost of providing government services also known as the “cost of governance” encompasses all expenses incurred by government in delivering goods and services to its citizens and in Nigeria the extraordinarily high cost has negatively impacted socio-economic development. This explains why despite the nation’s vast resources, Nigeria has failed to achieve significant socio-economic progress.
Lamentably the annual increase in the cost of governance has little to do with subsidising the welfare of citizens. It is caused by corruption, inefficient resource management and excessive bureaucracy. Added to this, massive amounts are dedicated to subsidising the welfare of political office holders, who are immunised from the ill effects of inflation through unjustifiable salaries, self-granted allowances, and what is quaintly termed “fringe benefits”.
The sharing of foreign assembled luxury vehicles to political office holders, and padding of budgets with extraordinarily absurdly expensive constituency projects all evidence a lack of synergy between government and the governed. Allowing each government department or document issuing authority to increase prices willy-nilly based upon financial accounting models is a recipe for economic disaster.
It is fallacious to believe that economies grow based upon government revenue and expenditure. Experts in Development Economics make it quite clear that the growth of underdeveloped economies is based upon increasing the disposable income available to its citizens. It is simply defective logic for any government claiming to want to encourage local production, the building of factories and local production of goods and services to also create a situation in which citizens are being pauperised and their disposable income decimated.
The latest increase in the costs of driving license and number plates is objectionable for several reasons. As far as number plates go, the often repeated truth is that they are sub-standard and not worth the money charged. The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) was responsible for introducing the new sub-standard aluminum-pan number plates which in truth fade in just a few years. Up until today, imported vehicles which are over 25 years old still have number plates which are legible and in good condition. Instead of accepting responsibility for the debacle the FRSC has strived to turn driving with a faded number plate into a punishable offence!
As for the argument which attempts to justify the increase by claiming rising administrative and production costs, it is fallacious. Nigeria is one of only three African countries that use the North American standard 300mm x 152mm number plates. The new price approved by the JTB is N30,000 but motor panel-beaters and aluminum workers testify that they buy aluminum sheet plates of this dimension for less than N5,000! Neither the JTB nor FRSC deems it fit to inform Nigerians of the actual production costs of the plates and whether or not their production and supply is simply a Private/Public Sector (PPS) profit making venture.
As for driving licences, the supposed computerisation of the lengthy process implies that administrative costs should reduce not increase! Neither the FRSC nor the JTB has made any comment on the time-wasting laborious procedure to obtain a driving licence let alone promised to improve on it. A six month wait for capture and issue is not unusual! Added to this the JTB and FRSC seem obsessed with revenue collection and issuing expensive driving licences while making no effort to conduct driving tests to confirm that applicants can actually drive! The end result is that there are too many Nigerians who cannot drive but posses a driving licence, and so many others who although they can drive, do so irresponsibly and erratically because they are self-taught and do not understand either the rules of the road, or how to drive properly.
Until the process is improved the number of accidents will not reduce and our roads will not become safer for travel. Essentially all increases in the cost of government documents or services at this moment when Nigerians are being increasingly pauperised are an anathema, and should not be implemented.