adminThey should learn to make decisions and stick by them if they are to be taken seriously by the motorists and the people of Zimbabwe.
The registration of vehicles is a very important exercise which does not only bring revenue to Zinara but also ensures that all vehicles have insurance that provides cover for accident victims.
It is the duty of Zinara to therefore ensure that all vehicles on the country’s roads are registered. Licence discs for most vehicles expired on 31 May hence the long queues witnessed at most Zimpost outlets throughout the country during the past two weeks or so as motorists tried to beat the 31 May deadline.
Zinara in a bid to curb production of fake licence discs has introduced new discs with more security features and as such the registration of vehicles is taking longer than before.
At the expiry of the 31 May deadline, about 220 000 out of an estimated 800 000 vehicles in the country had been registered. This low figure prompted Zinara to extend the deadline to 30 June to allow motorists time to register their vehicles. When it extended the deadline, Zinara conceded that motorists were not to blame for their failure to meet the deadline as the slow registration was as a result of operational challenges such as Zesa power cuts. “We have listened to the public and we have agreed in consultation with the Minister of Transport, Communication and Infrastructural Development, Nicholas Goche that the deadline should be reset to 30 June. We have noted that at some of the registering outlets, namely Hillside Post Office in Bulawayo, there was load shedding most of the time and people were queuing without getting the service,” Zinara spokesperson, Mr Augustine Moyo was quoted saying. Yesterday the motoring public woke up to shocking news when the same organisation that appeared to be sensitive to their plight made an about turn and announced the cancellation of the deadline.
According to Mr Moyo, his organisation decided to cancel the extension of the deadline because it realised that motorists were not taking advantage of the extension.
“I have toured Matabeleland North and South provinces in the last 48 hours and the registering outlets are empty. People will want to come and start registering on 29 June and fail to beat the deadline again,” said Mr Moyo.
Now queues have resurfaced at post offices throughout the country, thanks to Zinara’s indecisiveness and poor corporate governance. They would surely grab all the accolades on this if there was such a competition!
What is mind boggling is that the same Zinara which acknowledged that the motorists were not to blame for failing to meet the 31 May deadline now wants to punish the innocent motorists for its own shortcomings. We want at this juncture to warn Zinara authorities that it is dangerous to make impulsive decisions on important national programmes such as registration of vehicles. When Zinara decided to extend the deadline, we want to believe, it had considered all options and concluded that the only feasible option was to extend the deadline. A mere sampling of registering outlets in Matabeleland North and South cannot justify the drastic decision taken by Zinara which in our view exposes the confusion and chaos within the organisation. What type of corporate governance is this? Is Zinara after punishing law abiding citizens by deliberately setting traps?
Motorists, like the rest of Zimbabweans, spend their money according to priorities and when Zinara decided to extend the deadline it was only logic for some of the motorists to spend money meant for registration on other pressing demands knowing too well they were going to raise the registration fees before the 30 June deadline.
After announcing the new deadline, Zinara should have just waited for it to expire and then take action. It is not Zinara’s business to decide when motorists should register their vehicle as long as the date is within its set deadline. We want to implore Zinara to reconsider its decision which we strongly feel is not feasible given the capacity of registering outlets and the outstanding vehicle population. The registering outlets nationwide were reported to be registering an average of 2 000 vehicles a day so how are these outlets expected to cope with the congestion of registering more than 500 000 vehicles?
There is definitely going to be a stampede at registering outlets as motorists avoid being arrested for not registering their vehicles.
The powers that be should intervene and ensure Zinara carries out its mandate of serving the motoring public as opposed to deliberately causing their suffering for problems that are not of their own making.
For now Zinara’s credibility is at stake and it is up to authorities to correct that image.
Online Reporter