No license plate backlog by 2020 — LTO

Screen shot of a video provided by the Department of Transportation.

MANILA, Philippines — There would no longer be a backlog of vehicle license plates by 2020 as the Land Transportation Office (LTO) fast-tracks its production using a “robotic” plate-making machine.

The LTO said the new machine could produce 700 license plates per hour or approximately 5,600 plates in an eight-hour shift per day.

“Eventually, we feel we can cover up the backlog in due time. Zero plate backlog in 2020,” LTO chief Assistant Secretary Edgar Galvante said on Tuesday in a press conference.

Galvante said the agency has projected that 1.9 million new cars would be registered in the whole of 2019 and the LTO has already prepositioned license plates on different regions to address the demand.

“Mag-aadvance production tayo. May regions na pinadala na yung plaka nila na dapat hanggang June 2019 meron na sila lalung lalo na yung December 2019 meron na tayong nakapreposition nyan,” he said.

In 2018, the LTO records showed that there was a backlog of eight million license plates, however, the agency said it had produce 1.7 million vehicle plates as of March 2019.

READ: LTO plates backlog: 230K down, 8M to go

A large part of the backlog stems from the 2.9 million vehicles registered from February 2014 to July 2016, whose plates have yet to be processed in view of a notice of disallowance from the Commission on Audit (COA).

The COA issued the notice on July 13, 2015, saying the LTO’s deal with supplier Power Plates Development Concepts Inc.-J. Knieriem BV-Goes (PPI-JKG) was illegal or awarded without an allotment under the 2014 General Appropriations Act. /jpv

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