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Vehicle registration will boost govt revenue profile, plug leakages — Edun

In the midst of dwindling revenue orchestrated by falling oil prices and a mono-economy further worsened by revenue leakages from unplugged loopholes such as customs duty payment evasion, the Federal Government plans to lean on the National Vehicle Registry (VREG) for effective response.

Furthermore, the absence of a dynamic and centralised platform for national vehicular information, despite Nigeria being the largest importer of vehicles in Africa with an additional 15 million vehicles operational in the country has made it imperative for the government to deploy VREG.

This was disclosed on Tuesday by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy Wale Edun at a zonal sensitisation seminar on the National Vehicle Registry (VREG) in Abuja.

“This huge vacuum had sustained the menaces of customs duty evasion, paucity of data for vehicular policy formulation, nationwide vehicle administration for revenue leakages, vehicle theft & vehicle-related crimes, challenges in road traffic regulation enforcement, limited access to credit facilities and ineffective vehicle insurance coverage & monitoring and evaluation”‘ Edun said in his keynote address.

He pointed out that since the emergence of VREG in 2021, several benefits of the registry have been achieved amongst which include, utilisation as a tool to mitigate the evasion of customs duty administration, payment and drive operational efficiency in motor vehicle administration across state lines.

Currently, he said VREG has been able to seamlessly integrate with the critical stakeholders and these connections have brought about real-time, dynamic information exchange leading to optimization and plugging of revenue leakages associated with vehicle importation, vehicle insurance administration, and monitoring vehicles.

“VREG is connected to multiple global VIN databases and vehicle history repositories for real-time international interconnectivity and robust Curation of vehicular data towards ensuring all vehicles entering into Nigeria and operational within are interconnected to the global vehicular information network for the facilitation of global trade and crime fighting, amongst others,” he stated.

Furthermore, he explained that VREG serves as a dynamic aggregator of vehicular data pooled from the various vehicle administrating stakeholders to promote real-time information exchange and interconnectivity among stakeholders, towards the actualisation of their respective and collective mandates.

“In addition to the objectives of this policy, VREG is strategically positioned to provide insightful data analytics for policy formulation & implementation, mechanisms for the mitigation of revenue leakages from tax evasion and other revolutionization of vehicle insurance generation and compliance, improved crimes, vehicle administration
inefficiencies, for increased revenue facilities through administration.”

Edun said vehicle utilisation, and the reduction of vehicle theft and vehicle-related access to credit will be minimised with the introduction of VREG.

The VREG, he observed has achieved technical integration with the majority of the critical stakeholders in attendance today, including the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), National Collateral Registry (NCR), and the Motor Vehicle Administration Agency of most of the states including FCT. These connections have ensured the real-time, seamless, and dynamic information interchange towards the optimisation and plugging of revenue leakages associated with vehicle importation, vehicle insurance, and motor
vehicle administration.

He said the game-changing vehicle analytics provided by the aforementioned interconnectivity is at the fore of the vehicle-related policy decision-making and monitoring mechanisms for revenue recovery, national planning and infrastructural development by the Federal Government.

“In furtherance to the accomplishment of VREG’s objectives, some of the critical next steps for VREG include the completion of technical integrations with the Central Motor Registry (CMR) of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), and the National Vehicle Information System (NVIS) of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) as well as strengthening of the collaborative efforts with the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC), and the Joint Tax Board (JTB)”, he informed, stressing that “It is crucial these integrations are finalised to complement the existing ones with the already integrated stakeholders”.

He explained that efforts are currently underway to expand the impact of VREG through integration with each of the state’s vehicle administration agencies to simplify compliance and regularisation.

He informed that the stakeholder interconnectivity, once achieved, shall result in the rollout of benefits to the citizenry which include improved access to credit, ease of vehicle trade, vehicle lifecycle management, and enhanced insurance coverage.

Edun called for strengthened cooperation amongst stakeholders to create the synergy that will ensure the optimisation and accomplishment of the objectives of VREG towards a prosperous nation.

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