RULES to restrict the use of vehicle dealer plates are in the pipeline in order to stamp out abuse.
The new proposal sent to the House of Representatives yesterday, aims to overhaul the regime governing dealer plates and to close loopholes which allow buyers to delay registering a new vehicle.
Current regulations allow dealers to use dealer plates to demonstrate new vehicles to potential clients. But the practice has proved flawed, the Ministry of Communications and Works said in a report accompanying the draft bill.
In numerous cases vehicles circulating with dealer plates have already been bought and handed over to their new owners before being properly registered.
“This means a large of cars without ‘identity’ are on the roads, and when they are involved in road accidents, traffic or even criminal offences, this makes the work of the police difficult,” the ministry said.
The state was losing revenue because of the delay in registration – since a large number of vehicles were circulating for a considerable time with dealer plates or no plates at all.
The ministry said there had also been cases where vehicles handed over to their owners before registration had been subjected to modifications which could affect their weight and therefore registration fees and road tax.
Its proposal is a new bill which would enable the commissioner of motor vehicles to issue authorised dealers with a number of dealer plates proportional to their turnover.
These plates will be placed on all non-registered vehicles used for demonstration. The use of plates not given under the new law would not be allowed. Authorised dealer plates could only be used on the same vehicle for a maximum of one month.
The commissioner could cancel a dealers’ licence if he violated the law. Courts, in addition to other penalties, would also be able to order confiscation of a vehicle which was circulating without licence plates. All dealers would be obliged to hold analytical data on all their vehicles circulating with dealer plates.
The bill is subject to the approval of the House of Representatives.
