Defaulters cost Zinara US$20m annually

fail to buy vehicle licences although they are using the country’s roads.
Fake licence discs printed cheaply on computer printers are used to get vehicles through police roadblocks and other checks.
To plug the loopholes, the authority now seeks to introduce a new computerised system to ensure all owners of Zimbabwe’s 700 000 vehicles pay their road licences.
Road licence fees are used together with tollgate fees, overload fees and transit fees to maintain highways and construct new roads.
According to Zinara, it is only collecting a paltry US$5 million every year from about 300 000 vehicles instead of nearly US$40 million from over 700 000 vehicles registered with the Central Vehicle Registry.
There are however, some vehicles that have been off the road for some time and the owners have not sought exemption to pay the reduced licence fees.
In an interview at the weekend, Zinara chief executive officer Mr Frank Chitukutuku said the authority was introducing the new system to crack the whip on owners evading licence fees payment.
Many vehicle owners are resorting to buying fake licence discs, which they buy cheaply from bogus dealers, who are now making brisk business.
“Zinara is set to introduce an air tight computerised system to ensure all motorists who have not been lice-nsing properly are brought to book.
“We want to close all the loopholes so that all the revenue is accounted for so that we improve our roads to world class standards as well as constructing new roads in remote areas,” Mr Chitukutuku said.
The system, which should be fully operational by September this year, he said, would have a database of all motorists maintained at Zimpost, the official distributor of vehicle licence discs.
He said all vehicles should appear in the database and if not, the owners would be required to produce all receipts and authenticate previous payments of one’s vehicle licence.
Mr Chitukutuku urged vehicle ow-ners who have improperly licensed their vehicles to immediately visit their nearest Zimpost Offices to regularise their licences.
Zinara, he said, had a long list of companies who have been using fake licence discs on their fleet of vehicles.
“If we have not yet approached you then we warn you to regularise otherwise when the system comes effective, the long arm of the law will catch up with you,” Mr Chitukutuku said.
Mr Chitukutuku said Zinara was also in the process of phasing out the physical discs and replacing them with computer readable stickers in a move that will minimise counterfeits.
He said the benefits of the new system would enhance the country’s road network to world class standards.
“Motorists will save on shocks and tyres as the roads will be serviced well,” he said, urging all motorists to ensure that their licence discs were genuine.
He said owners could now pay for their vehicle licences at their nearest Zimpost Offices countrywide unlike in the past where they had to pay only in their residential areas.
“We have relaxed conditions so that motorists can conveniently pay their vehicle licences,” he said.
Mr Chitukutuku added Zinara was coming up with the new system after realising that the authority was losing a substantial amount of revenue due to loopholes in the licensing system.
“What we have noticed is that the vehicle population versus revenue was not matching. We proceeded to produce one set of discs for one term that is from September 2010 to January 2011.
“On the road, our results indicated that about 300 000 paid vehicle licence fees out of a population of about 700 000 vehicles,” Mr Chitukutuku said.
He said the authority conducted an operation with the Zimbabwe Republic Police to ensure that enforcement was done on the roads.
However, it appeared that all motorists were paying their licence fees, but police through investigations later informed us of a syndicate of unscrupulous people printing our licence discs.
“Investigations revealed that most big companies, including buses operators and haulage truck operators were using fake licence discs and arrests were made and the culprits were brought to book,” Mr Chitukutuku said.
Recently, police busted a fake licence disc syndicate and recovered water marked paper and stencils used to generate fake licence discs.
Two members of the syndicate Moses Rufu (37) and Tafadzwa Antonio (38) were each sentenced to serve an effective two years behind bars.
Mr Chitukutuku commended the courts for passing deterrent sentences on such criminals.
Zinara is now responsible for managing road funds after taking over from local authorities that were previously managing the funds. The take-over came after it emerged that local authorities were diverting the funds.
Most roads in Zimbabwe need reco-nstruction because they have reached the end of their lifespan and efforts to revamp the country’s road network have been hampered by lack of funds.
Motorists have to dodge potholes and broken road edges to avert dama-ge to their vehicles. Even large haulage trucks now seem to have taken to swerving around the larger holes.
And the bad state of the roads has seen motorists incur huge bills to repair damage to their vehicles and possibly more accidents.
Government introduced the tollgate system nearly two years ago to widen its revenue base to raise funds for road construction and maintenance.
Research conducted on the critical sectors of the economy five years ago, estimated that of Zimbabwe’s 88 330 kilometres total road network, only 24 percent was in good condition.
However, while the road conditions were excellent during the mid- 1990s and before, the situation deteriorated due to floods that occurred in 2000 and the general economic decline and serious underfunding for road maintenance and construction.