Transport Ministry: Will continue to revoke vehicle registrations where necessary

Transport Ministry states it will continue to cancel vehicle registrations where necessary, despite the recent Civil Court injunction to halt the cancellation of the registration of over 80 vehicles.

The Transport Ministry has cancelled the registration of 136 vehicles – including cars and motorbikes – citing they were registered in violation of regulations.

Transport Minister Aishath Nahula herself spoke in support of the decision, stating that the vehicles were registered in violation of regulations.

Some of the owners of the vehicles filed a lawsuit with the Civil Court over the decision.

On Monday, the Civil Court issued the injunction ordering a halt to the cancellation of the registration of 87 vehicles – announced by the Transport Ministry in announcements on September 7 and September 26.

Deputy Transport Minister Hamad Abdul Ghanee told Sun on Wednesday that he finds the court’s decision unacceptable.

Hamad said that the registrations cancelled were that of vehicles that were registered in violation of regulations, and that the Transport Ministry will continue to cancel the registration of vehicles found to have been registered in violation of regulations.

“Despite the court order, we will continue to cancel the registration of vehicles registered in violation of regulations, other than the 87 vehicles in dispute at court,” he said.

Hamad said the registration of vehicles in violation of regulations is unacceptable, and will not be condoned by the Transport Ministry.

Hamad said the Transport Ministry has asked the Attorney General’s Office to appeal the injunction.

“For instance, thieves going to the Civil Court to hide their theft is unacceptable. This is something like that,” he said.

Hamad said the government has a zero-tolerance policy to corruption, and that the Transport Ministry will continue to abide by that policy.

Hamad said the irregularly registered vehicles were identified in an internal audit by the Transport Ministry.

He said the audit uncovered 202 vehicles that were registered without applications to the Transport Ministry.

Hamad said it was done by hacking into the Transport Ministry’s IT system.

Hamad said the Transport Ministry conducts security audits to ascertain the security of the systems, and has been working on switching to new software since the beginning of the year.

He said that it was currently in testing phase, and that data will be migrated as soon as work on the new software is done.