Dear Editor,
The President’s recent announcement regarding the proliferation of fraudulent driver’s licenses has sparked a necessary and urgent conversation about integrity, safety, and the rule of law on our roads. The six-week moratorium for holders to regularize their status is a critical step toward resolving a dangerous issue that puts every road user at risk.
However, as we digest this directive, a significant concern emerges—one that many of you have rightly raised. While the focus is rightly on those who possess fraudulent licenses, we must ask: What about the enablers? What about the facilitators within the system who made this fraud possible?
The President outlined the process clearly: the theoretical and practical tests fall under the Guyana Police Force (GPF), with the final card issued by the GRA. The anomalies are stark:
· Individuals who failed tests paid for temporary permits.
· Some bypassed the entire process altogether through payment.
· The ongoing digitization has revealed missing records at various stages.
This points not merely to individual lapses, but to organized facilitation. These facilitators did not just enable fraud; they initiated it, profited from it, and compounded the crime. They betrayed public trust from within the very institutions designed to uphold it.
While the President mentioned this would be dealt with, the current moratorium and warning of prosecution are directed squarely at the license holders. This risks creating an incomplete solution. Failing to pursue the facilitators with equal, or even greater, vigor sends a dangerous message:
1. It Preserves a Cancerous System: Targeting only the beneficiaries while leaving the corrupt facilitators in place leaves the door wide open for this practice to continue, adapt, and resurface. The root cause remains untreated.
2. It Undermines Deterrence: If facilitators believe they can profit from corruption with relative impunity—facing only the loss of illicit income, not prosecution—the incentive to corrupt the system remains powerful.
3. It Erodes Public Confidence: For this initiative to truly restore faith, it must demonstrate that corruption at all levels will be rooted out. A one-sided approach can feel unjust, punishing those who paid (often out of desperation or perceived necessity) while sparing those who extorted and engineered the scheme does not in anyway address the genesis of the problem .Unless and until we treat the root causes, the tree will flourish again. “No stones should be left unturned”
Therefore, we appeal for a holistic and forceful approach:
· Parallel Investigations: The moratorium period must be used not just to regularize licenses, but to aggressively investigate and identify facilitators within the GPF and GRA. The digital audit of missing records is a prime starting point.
· Clear Communication of Consequences for Enablers: A public, unequivocal statement is needed that government employees or intermediaries who facilitated this fraud will face criminal prosecution, dismissal, and lifetime bans from public service. Their actions are not an administrative lapse; they are a criminal conspiracy.
· Protection for Whistleblowers: Encourage and protect those within the system who come forward with information. They are essential to breaking the walls of silence.
· Systemic Reform: Use this crisis to completely overhaul and transparently digitize the entire licensing process, removing unnecessary points of human discretion that enable corruption.
Going after the enablers is not an “also”; it is the core of solving this problem permanently. It is the only way to ensure that after these six weeks, we have not just a temporary fix, but a reformed system that Guyanese can trust.
Let us support the government in taking the next, crucial step. Let’s demand a clean sweep. Our safety on the roads and our faith in justice demand nothing less.
Yours truly
Hemdutt Kumar
