The entrance to the mechanical vehicle inspection center in Hadath, a suburb of Beirut. (Credit: NNA/Archives)
After suspending operations for months, the vehicle registration centers known as "Nafaa" are set to reopen.
A series of media reports citing the acting director of the Traffic Management Center, Marwan Abboud, confirmed this. L'Orient-Le Jour was able to confirm this with a source from Inkript, a company employed by the State to provide a range of services at the Nafaa, inlcuding delivery of license plates, registration cards and driving licenses.
Initially, the source stated that centers concerned would open throughout the country on Tuesday, in Dekwaneh (Mount Lebanon), Zahleh (Bekaa), Saida (South Lebanon), Nabatiyeh (Nabatiyeh) and Tripoli (North Lebanon).
Mechanical payment possible this week
However, in a press release published early this evening by the official National News Agency (NNA), the Traffic Management Center announced that vehicle registration operations would not resume until next week, citing imperatives linked to the "implementation of the Council of Ministers' decision of April 14, 2022 and the Court of Audit's decision of August 13," without providing any further details. Meanwhile, citizens can pay their "mechanical" fees, international driving licenses and procedures for inoperable vehicles.
Speaking to LBCI before the publication of the press release, Marwan Abboud announced that Nafaa employees would "start managing, as of today, the formalities we had prepared during the closure period." The director of the vehicle registration department, Ali Taha, assured the channel that "all departments will resume their normal work."
After being closed for more than six months following an investigation into alleged corruption by civil servants, some vehicle registration centers reopened in April with partial resumption of operations. The centers operated three days a week, receiving cars according to chassis number. However, they subsequently closed their doors.
The other issue at the root of these closures invovles a dispute between the Traffic Management Center and Inkript, a company specialized in IT security for governments and financial institutions. Inkript has worked with the state for the past seven years. The Parliamentary Committee of Public Works accused the company last week of not having a contract. These accusations were rejected by the company's management. According to a spokeswoman contacted by L'Orient-Le Jour, the dispute between the Traffic Management Center and Inkript was not the only reason for Nafaa's closure, and the decision to reopen was taken following discussions between the two parties which began last Friday.