Barbara Bako, Abuja
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, has revealed that the Federal Government is making efforts to widen the impact of the National Vehicle Registration (VREG) through integration with each of the 36 states’ vehicle administration agencies to simplify compliance and regularisation.
Edun stated that once this is achieved, the stakeholder interconnectivity would result in the rollout of benefits to Nigerians among which include improved access to credit, ease of vehicle trade, vehicle lifecycle management and enhanced insurance coverage.
The National Vehicle Registry (VREG) is a centralised database of all vehicles in Nigeria, using the unique Vehicle Identification Numbers (VIN) to store detailed information on vehicles including specifications, ownership, history, and vehicle administration interaction for the purposes of policy formulation, national planning and revenue aggregation.
The minister, who spoke during a zonal sensitisation seminar on VREG on Tuesday in Abuja, noted that the vehicle registry had recorded several benefits since its emergence in 2021.
The benefits, including its utilisation as a tool to mitigate the evasion of customs duty payment and drive operational efficiency in motor vehicle administration across state lines.
He said: “Currentiy, VREG has been able to seamlessly integrate with the critical stakeholders in attendance today and these connections have brought about real-time, dynamic information exchange leading to optimisation and plugging of revenue leakages associated with vehicle importation, vehicle insurance administration, and motor vehicle administration.
VREG he said “is connected to multiple global VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) databases and vehicie 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.”
“Furthermore, 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 colective mandates,” he added.
Edun emphasized that in addition to the objectives of this policy, VREG was strategically positioned to provide insightful data analytics for policy formulation and implementation, mechanisms for the mitigation of revenue leakages from tax evasion and other vehicle administration
ineficiencies, for increased revenue generation and compliance, improved access to credit facilities through vehicle utilisation, and the reduction of vehicle theft and vehicle related crimes.
READ ALSO:Edun unveils plans to strengthen Naira, curb inflation
He said, “I am pleased to inform you that in pursuit of the above stated objectives, VREG 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 miotor 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 vehicie importation, vehicie insurance, and motor vehicle administration,” he stated.
In his welcome address at the seminar, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Mr. Okokon Ekanem Udo, said importance of data in building the economy cannot be over-emphasised, especially in this era of comprehensive data and analytics.
According to him, while much attention had been paid to documenting information on vehicle entry into the country, there has been a utilisation deficit of the same data towards the benefit of the nation.
