Intricate

One of the questions asked when we planned to come to Accra was how to get a drivers license. It's easy was the reply, you go just go down to the DVLA, pay and in an hour they give you a drivers license. I have learned to take anything with the word just or easy with great skepticism living in Accra. Life is complicated here, don't let anyone tell you differently.

Getting A Drivers License for a Foreign Individual

First you have to live here four months to get a resident permit to live in Ghana pasted and stamped into your passport. You have to have a actual resident permit card, a record of your previous driving record, and your valid driver's license from your previous country, with access to 700 cedis (about $140).

Then the fun begins. First a trip down to Area travel department where they take your records and copy them and then they write a letter to the DVLA to get an invite to come get an appointment. That takes two working days to come back.

If you are smart you go with the man from the Area Office Travel department. I followed him like a puppy dog.

A trip to the main office of the DVLA [Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority] reception desk, then a stop at a lady's office down the corridor and into another building, who checks and copies all records putting them all into a folder which she hands to another woman, who then leads us down another corridor into a foyer and up into an office of the Senior Deputy [if I remember his title correctly] where we sit and wait. Another man with another lady holding a folder waits with us. Everyone stands up when the Deputy comes in and then sits as he sits at his desk. He carefully goes through each document in the file and carefully reads them all before he signs for his permission to get a license. A first time license requires two tests. Luckily, I have taken tests in another country. We are given our original documents and the copies go away to a file in the first lady's office. 

Then we head over to another building of the DVLA where first we go to the information window getting forms to fill out, then later to the recorders window where my records are all 'processed'. We wait for my name to be called at a different window by a person who hands me paperwork to bring to the cashier's window which I pay and bring back the same documents with a stamp on it. Here I look into a little box with square binocular type opening to check my vision. After reading the letters we wait for my name to be called again. They ask me to sit and "capture" my picture and we wait again. When my name is called we check that the information is correct on my license and then simple - I walk out with it! 

One hour is a great exaggeration. I had a lot of time to figure out the picture designs on the wall were made out of five different kinds of seeds and know that the lady's carrying folders were coming to and from the second building with records and bringing water to different people. I noted there were different processes for different people. So nice that the chairs were cushy.