An encounter with the VELD ‘colonel’

I was always very uncomfortable when I was driving without a driver’s license. Once a policeman stopped me and asked for my license. I gave him my Insurance booklet.

“I say your license.”

I searched frantically for a non-existent license and told the cop the damn license wasn’t showing up in my briefcase. Next time I’d get it for him. He opened the insurance booklet and studied it.

“Are you the writer?”

“Yes sir,” I saluted.

“Carry on.”

The Inspector would have gotten me gaoled if he hadn’t recognised me as the Sikaman Palava man. But I realised that the cop-master wouldn’t spare me a second time so I decided to go for a license.

The Vehicle Examination and Licensing Division (VELD) in Accra is a perpetual beehive of activity. You’d see trainee drivers meekly trailing their instructors, enroute to a tiny office downstairs to meet the man who looks and works like a very efficient Colonel. Mr Joseph Amamoo is the name.

You’d also be privileged to meet ‘connection men’ right at the gate. They’d stop you and politely enquire whether you want a licence. They could get you one in exactly 15 minutes whether you believe it or not.

“Or are you coming to do ownership? That one would take 10 minutes.”

“No I am only coming to see the director here.”

I drove in and was ushered in to see the Acting Director of VELD, the living legend in the person of Mr. J.M.Y. Amegashie. He is the VELD Field Marshall,

“What can I do for you?”

“I want a license.”

“Know the road signs?”

“Yes.”

“Go downstairs and see Mr Amamoo and go for the various tests.”

“Oh, I can drive,” I reminded the director.

“So go and prove it.”

Mr Amamoo was busy taking a trainee-driver through the road signs. The guy was shivering and I wondered whether he was suffering from malaria.

Apparently, he didn’t know half the signs…

“Go back and study the signs well and come back next week,” he was told. It was my turn. The guy left extremely disappointed.

“There are four things you have to do when you want to overtake a vehicle. State them!” Mr Amamoo ordered me. I also went through the drill of identifying all the road signs, and now…

“Did you bring a car?”

“Yes sir.”

Let’s go for the test.”

It was now my turn to shiver. I die finish. I should be careful I do not mistake the accelerator brake.

 “You are going to drive through some parts of the capital.”

“Yes sir.” I got in and while reversing I hung my elbow stylishly on the car door.

“Get your arm off the door,” Mr Amamoo growled at me. “You must know that you are at a driving test. You are not in your sitting room.”

“No problem sir,” I said and took off the arm.  I drove and got to a junction and stopped although could have gone ahead.

“It is alright for you to stop, but because of the volume of traffic these days, It is always advisable to watch before you get near a junction so that you can enter without stopping if it is clear. You don’t necessarily have to stop at every junction, so watch approach.”

We went round and round through intersections, double lanes, U-turns, whatever. Then we got to a steep slope, I was instructed to stop and then ordered to climb the slope without coming back in the least. I prided myself to being a master driver and executed the task almost effortlessly.

I then forgot and put my arm again on the “You don’t like taking instructions-eh. Take off your arm,” he barked this time.

“Sorry-o.”

When we returned, I was made to go through a process of signing my name here and there, filling one form after another. A whole lot of elaborate procedure that made me impressed with the thoroughness the system applies to the issuance of licences.

CONNECTION MEN

“Mr Amamoo, why do you allow these connection men at the gate,” I asked.

“They are the people who issue fake drivers’ licences to people,” he said. “When a driver is in possession of a driving license without going through the process you have undergone, you can be sure that the license is fake. If you go through the process, you’d have every necessary record at VELD so that in case your license is lost, we’d only have to refer to the records and issue you with a new one. The connection men hang around here and you can’t drive them away because you can’t identify them.”

“But we hear people come here to VELD officials and are given licences without taking the tests,” I said.

“Then those licences are not genuine. Look, whenever the police mount operations to check licences, they seize 15 to 20 fake licences every single day. Those licences were not issued by VELD but by the connection men. If you come to VELD for a licence, you’d certainly go through the process. If a VELD official gives you a licence without a test, it is wrong and against the law.”

Mr Amamoo showed me many fake licences, more than a thousand of them. The ‘connection men’ really must be in big business. I would have done some personal investigation on these connection men, I said to myself.

When I was issued with my licence, I saluted Mr Amamoo, got into my car and drove away, my arm on the car door.

This article was first published on October 31, 1998