The Senate on Thursday in Abuja passed a bill to prohibit the issuance of permanent permits to owners of vehicles with tinted glasses.
By the new law, permits for tinted glass, which are hitherto permanent, will be renewed on a yearly basis and could not be transferred to a third party.
The senate passed the bill after considering the report of its joint Committee on Police Affairs and Judiciary and Human Rights and Legal Matters.
The Chairman of the joint committee, Sen. Paulinus Nwagu (PDP-Ebonyi), presented the report on the bill entitled “A Bill for an Act to Amend the Motor Vehicles (Prohibition of Tinted Glass)’’.
Nwagu said that the committee, during its public hearing on the bill, observed that the law currently gave permanent permission to use tinted glass to a person, once granted by an appropriate authority.
He, however, said that with the amendment, the permission would be temporary and subject to renewal upon expiration.
He said that the bill when passed into law, as amended, would regulate and check indiscriminate use and abuse of tinted vehicle glasses.
Nwagu said that the new measure would go a long way to check criminal activities.
He also said that with the amendment, the recommendation for annual renewal of permits would, among other things, check abuse and indiscriminate use of vehicles with tinted glasses.
“Users will now be required to pay in order to renew the permission on an annual basis so as to guarantee continuous usage and this will, in turn, generate more revenue for the government.’’
Following the passage of the bill, it is now left for the House of Representatives to also pass the bill before it could be forwarded to President Goodluck Jonathan for assent.
To get a permit to use a vehicle with tinted glass, the vehicle’s owner needs to write an application to the Inspector-General of Police.
The application, which must be predicated on health or security reasons only, should be accompanied with photocopies of all relevant particulars of the vehicle.
The application must also be accompanied with a photograph of the vehicle, profile of the applicant and a passport-size photograph of the owner of the vehicle.
