On Friday, August 28, 2026, the Chief Executive Officer of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority, Julius Neequaye Kortey, held a golden shovel in Accra and cut the sod for a new vehicle number plate manufacturing centre. The official declaration was simple: the DVLA will soon manufacture, print, and emboss its own Radio Frequency Identification embedded number plates, severing ties with third-party suppliers and private embossers.
To the untrained eye, it sounds like modern administrative independence. But to anyone who understands basic economics, state governance, and the historic mandate of public institutions, this announcement should set off alarm bells.
Where on earth is factory production the core mandate of a state regulatory authority?
The fundamental rule of a thriving market economy is clear: government regulates, the private sector produces. When a regulator steps onto the factory floor to manufacture the very items it is supposed to supervise, it abandons its core duty. It creates a direct conflict of interest, kills competition, and sets a dangerous precedent for state interventionism.
The decision to take over manufacturing and distribution under the banner of eliminating fake plates is a solution looking for a problem, wrapped in flawed logic.
First, consider the immediate human and economic cost. Ghana is currently grappling with youth unemployment and economic headwinds. For decades, dozens of private Ghanaian-owned enterprises, small-scale embossers, and local logistics partners built their livelihoods around the license plate ecosystem. By bringing production entirely in-house, the state is effectively pulling the rug from under these local businesses.
The authority claims it will still “regulate” private embossers. But how do you regulate a private sector you have stripped of its primary commercial function? You cannot starve an industry of its core business and then claim to be protecting its jobs.
Second, the central argument for state production—curbing security breaches and fake plates—does not hold water under serious scrutiny. Security is an enforcement issue, not a manufacturing issue.
During the business-friendly reforms pioneered under the New Patriotic Party, the philosophy of governance was rooted in private sector empowerment. When the state needed security-embedded national identification cards, it did not build a state-owned plastic factory; it partnered with private technology firms under strict regulatory frameworks. When the nation required digital address systems or passport security upgrades, the state specified the standards, and private enterprise delivered.
That is how modern economies operate. The regulator sets non-negotiable standards, inspects compliance, penalizes fraudsters, and leaves capital investment and operational risk to private investors.
If fake plates exist in the system today, it is not because private companies pressed the metal. It is because regulatory oversight, border checks, and field enforcement failed. Building a government factory with public funds does not magically make a regulatory authority more vigilant. In fact, history shows that state-run manufacturing hubs in Ghana quickly become bogged down by procurement delays, machine downtime, raw material shortages, and bureaucratic inefficiency.
What happens when the DVLA’s single manufacturing hub in Accra experiences a technical breakdown or runs out of imported raw aluminum? The entire vehicle registration pipeline across sixteen regions grinds to a sudden halt.
By centralizing production within a state agency, the authority is trading a resilient, multi-supplier private network for a fragile, single-point-of-failure public monopoly.
Ghana’s economic destiny relies on expanding the tax base through private enterprise, protecting local jobs, and keeping the footprint of government small, sharp, and efficient. State institutions must stick to policy formulation, oversight, and strict enforcement.
The DVLA must rethink this move. Instead of spending public money to construct factories and purchase heavy manufacturing plant machinery, the authority should focus on what the taxpayer actually pays it to do: enforce the law, audit private suppliers, digitize service delivery, and clear the administrative bottlenecks that slow down vehicle registration.
The private sector is the engine of growth. When the state tries to build the engine itself, the vehicle eventually stalls.
