The Barbados Licensing Authority (BLA) has announced the phased resumption of vehicle inspections and the issuing of road worthy certificates at its Pine, St. Michael headquarters. Such services were offline for the past week after the BLA’s online platform went offline.

Software developer, Andre Lashley, the BLA’s Information Technology (IT) Consultant stated that “the old legacy system that was managing the registration of vehicles suffered severe failure with the server going offline on October 20th. After diagnosis of the problem, it was determined that the solution was to replace the old IT infrastructure with a new platform. “

Urgent efforts immediately commenced to fix the issue as quickly as possible comprising a collaborative effort by the IT Consultant, the BLA and the Ministry of Innovation Science & Smart Technology (MIST.)

Due to the complexity of the vehicle registration system, the process of restoration is still ongoing but because of the urgency of the situation a strategy was developed to tackle the issue in an agile way, giving priority to critical processes.

The solution involves initial deployment of a manual solution for “a couple of days” along with an interim online solution to restore the most critical components such as the facilities for the weigh bridge and vehicle inspections.

Currently, the BLA staff are actively working on the backlog while testing of the new platform has started.

It is expected that a solution will be in place by next week, so customers can start using vehicle services again, by paying for and collecting Weight and Inspection Certificates.

Chief Licensing Officer, Mrs. Treca McCarthy-Broomes, has assured PSV permit holders whose permits expired during the BLA’s offline period that those permits will be honoured as valid until the BLA system has resumed full functionality.

Mrs. McCarthy-Broomes added that considering the expected influx, the Authority, in short order, will be utilizing the services of approved private garages to assist with vehicle inspections. The list of those garages will soon be published.

The Chief urged agents and customers who would be soon registering vehicles, to ensure that all documentation is ready for the registration process: application forms; authorization letters; insurance documents; ID cards; corporate documents; road worthy or inspection certificates; declaration forms; customs import entries, to list a few.(Stetson Babb – Media Consultant/ BLA)