No Drivers Licenses, Just Receipts

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Residents turning up at the Office of Motor Vehicles to obtain new drivers licenses or new their old ones have been issued receipts.

They were told by OMV staff that they don’t have laminated paper for the Id’s and that it will take a couple of weeks to get the needed supplies.

Parents of students going off island are upset about this pointing out that their children cannot use the receipts as identification plus some of them want to apply for US drivers licenses and the local drivers licenses makes it easier to acquire the stateside licenses.

Others point out that American Samoa was given funding to upgrade the local licenses and make them compliant with federal regulations but instead of an upgraded system, residents are given receipts.

Responding to KHJ News questions Commissioner of Public Safety Save Liuato Tuitele said American Samoa driver’s licenses are not in compliance with federal requirements because the OMV system needs upgrading in addition to other requirements that have not yet been completed .

Asked if the lack of supplies is because of non payment of an off island company that was upgrading the OMV system, the commissioner said “basically yes,”

Save explained that there are many moving parts that DPS needs to complete in order to be compliant with the federal requirement for the Real ID Act.

He said besides paying the vendor, there are several other things that have been put on hold for so many years that DPS needs to put in fixes for.

The commissioner said he doesn’t have the answer as to when Treasury will release the funds to pay the off island vendor and get the computer components for the system upgrade that have been sitting at the dock since November of last year.

The commissioner’s advice to those who intend to use their American Samoa drivers licenses as a means of identification when traveling to the US is to use their passport or military ID card to access federal facilities.

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