Al-Khazraji noted that up until now his department had only been able to issue about 150 licenses a day but that after a planned revamp of facilities that number should go put to about 2,000 licenses a day.
“And once we know that 80 percent of those who have applied for licenses in Ninawa have them, then we can start holding those who drive without a license here, responsible for their actions,” al-Khazraji explained.
But there was also a more sinister reason behind the hold up in the issuing of drivers’ licenses. “The process has been suspended because of corruption among the employees of the traffic department,” local journalist, Aysar Salim, told NIQASH. “This has seen the price of applying for a license rise to around US$100.”
This was happening because of the limited number of licenses that the department could issue every day, Salim said. “Rather than waiting years, many people have been willing to pay whatever it takes to get a license.”
Despite the fact that not many local traffic police ask to see a driver’s license, Ninawa locals still want them because they will need them if they ever drive out of their own locality – for instance, into Iraqi Kurdistan.
“Today it’s almost impossible to apply the road rules in Ninawa,” Mohammed, a local traffic policeman, who didn’t want to give his real name, said. “There are thousands of military vehicles that never stop at intersections or traffic lights because they fear they may be targeted by terrorists if they do. There are also official government convoys and they never stop at the lights either.”
Additionally Mohammed pointed out, “traffic police are deployed at different intersections to direct traffic because some of the lights haven’t been repaired since they were damaged in 2003. These days our role is limited to preventing bottlenecks on the intersections. Recently we started issuing some tickets for under aged drivers – but only those who were illegally in charge of public transport,” Mohammed notes. “But in general we don’t even have the right to issue tickets.”
This story was prepared as part of the Media academy Iraq’s mentorship programme for young Iraqi journalists, together with NIQASH’s regular correspondents around Iraq. The mentor for this story was Nawzat Shamdeen.
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