Ethiopia’s Ministry of Transport said it will introduce new and standardized license plates for all vehicles operating across the country.
In a directive the ministry issued on Monday, the ministry said the existing plate number system has been found to be vulnerable to “counterfeiting, bad governance and crime.”
The plate number system in place was based on regional states and city administration.
The regional states in Ethiopia are based on ethnic identities. Plate numbers by default used to indicate ethnic identity.
There have been complaints in the past that plate number systems cause security challenges for drivers.
According to the study, the new system will have plate numbers with “ETH” letters which will also be written in Geez letters – Ethiopia’s ancient scripts.
The variety of plate numbers and symbols will be based on “international conventions,” and will have security features for monitoring and inspection purposes, it was said.
The new system will consider the kind of service that vehicles provide, and the type of energy consumption are considered in the new plate system. Electric vehicles, for example, will have a different plate number from vehicles that consume fuels.
License plates will follow a new alphanumeric format comprising three Latin letters and four numerical numbers to create a broad serial base, the study revealed.
MG/as/APA