Rwanda National Police

Police in Kigali arrested two men on Monday for impersonation after they were allegedly found doing provisional driver's licence tests under other people's names.

 Police said Alex Nshimiyimana and Dieudonne Mutagisha were purportedly hired by candidates to seat for the provisional driving licence test on their behalf.

 The public driving licence tests started on Monday in Kigali where over 6000 permit seekers gathered at Amahoro stadium to prove their understanding on road traffic rules and their worthiness to be permitted to take another step and acquire a driver's licence.

 The duo is said to have been found holding forged national IDs containing particulars of real candidates, who were not present at the time.

 Chief Inspector of Police, Emmanuel Kabanda, spokesperson for the department of Traffic and Road Safety, said investigations are still on to find their accomplices, who apparently hired them.

 "We are aware of the tricks some people use to acquire driving permit, such as hiring others to do the tests on their behalf; at times they seat together while in other occasion they forge the national ID of the actual registered candidate to guise as real candidates," CIP Kabanda said.

 "We are aware of such and other malpractices people apply to fraudulently acquire a driver's licence, and if anyone intends to use the same channels, they will be arrested and punished as the law stipulates."

 Article 609 stipulates that "Any person who forges or alters documents by forged signature or fingerprint, falsifying documents or signatures or impersonation, forging agreements, its provisions, obligations, discharged obligations shall be liable to a term of imprisonment of more than five to seven years and a fine of Rwf300,000 to Rwf3 million."

 Under article 610, "any person who knowingly, uses a counterfeit document shall be liable to the same penalty as the person counterfeiting a document."

 CIP Kabanda advised driving permit seekers to always revise and prepare themselves well for the tests to be better drivers that understand the road traffic rules instead of taking the "illegal and impossible channels" that land them into trouble.

 It is said that lack of enough preparations has contributed greatly to a high number of failures.

 Statistics indicate that of those who did private tests in January this year, only 41.6 percent passed while only 29.5 percent passed the public tests conducted in February.

 In March, only 38.6 percent of the total candidates passed in driving schools.

 At least 90 people have been arrested with fake driver's license since the beginning of this year, and majority of these people didn't even know that they were actually holding fake permits because they were tricked to believe that what they were given through an illegal channel is actually real, according to Kabanda.

 A total of 22, 900 people registered to seat for both provisional and practical driving tests across the country, with 9, 367 of them in Kigali.

 Of the 7, 080 total candidates that registered that registered to do practical tests, 3, 197 are also from Kigali.

 The tests began on May 4 in Kigali and will end on May 28 in the Eastern Province.