Edo to enforce annual renewal of vehicle proof of ownership certificate from November 1

Vehicle owners in Edo State have been urged to renew their proof of ownership certificate (POC) for vehicles before 1 November 2023, when the enforcement of the annual renewal will commence.

This was announced by the Chairman of Taskforce on IGR of Edo State Internal Revenue Service (EIRS), John Osagie Inegbedion, in a statement on Wednesday.

He said that the annual renewal of the POC, which costs ₦1000, is in accordance with a communique issued by the Joint Tax Board (JTB) on 9 May 2023. The POC is a certificate that verifies that a vehicle is registered on the National Vehicle and Identification Scheme (NVIS) database.

The POC has several benefits, such as reducing car theft, facilitating the recovery of stolen vehicles, enabling easy verification and trace of vehicles, providing nationwide statistics of vehicles, and enhancing the national vehicle database for national security, planning, and economic development, Inegbedion explained.

He advised vehicle owners with expired documents to visit any nearest EIRS branch office to revalidate their expired vehicle particulars. He also warned that the EIRS, in collaboration with the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs), Security Agencies, and Transport Unions, will embark on a motor vehicle documentation and compliance exercise throughout the remaining months of 2023.

He said that those who fail to comply are likely to face prosecution in line with extant road traffic laws.