Police and Bank of Cook Islands (BCI) are not allowing a ‘grace period’ for vehicle registrations as they acknowledge there is a ‘bottleneck’ of people doing it at the last minute.

Bank chief executive Vaine Nooana-Arioka said vehicles had to be registered by the cut-off date of April 1 (today).

At 10am on Thursday, Cook Islands News noticed dozens of people at the BCI queuing up for registering their cars, motorbikes or scooters.

“Over time, with considerable growth in numbers and types of vehicles, the set date has brought administrative pressure due to ‘last minute’ payments, i.e. the bottleneck,” Nooana-Arioka said.  

“Police recognise that the available technology may now be encouraging a shift away from the set renewal date. The QR code now imprinted on stickers means scanning technology can verify payments, and thus compliance. Police will need to be adequately resourced, much like speed radar guns, etc.”

Nooana-Arioka said for this renewal period, police have advised that in the event payment online is made in these last days of renewal, they will validate payment using the QR code printed on the vehicles existing label, for a short period of time only, despite the expiry date on the printed label. 

“Vehicle owners that have paid online today and tomorrow do not need to rush or que at our BCI premises, and can still collect the label in the coming days,” she said yesterday.

“BCI encourages all motor vehicle owners, to commence annual vehicle registration renewals as early as mid-January each year, effectively giving vehicle owners approximately 10 weeks to pay renewals online via their bank’s internet banking channels, followed by collection of labels. 

“Moving forward, BCI will explore continuous improvement of the annual vehicle registration process with the Cook Islands Police to imbed greater use of scanning technology for ease of Police verification of compliance.”

Cook Islands Police were unable to give figures of how many vehicles were registered.

A police spokesman said Police are not considering a grace period for vehicle registration in the event someone has to go into isolation or quarantine for Covid-19.  

“Renewals were opened on February 1 for people to start getting in early. There is an online facility plus people are able to request family and friends to do it on their behalf. Our concern is compliance and law enforcement,” he said.

He said that unregistered vehicles (annual licence or plate) receive a $20 fine.

“There won’t be any targeting or warnings. Police will conduct their usual traffic enforcement checks,” he said.