Chronicle Editor
Elita Chikwati Senior Reporter
The Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara)’s partners, Univern Enterprises (Pvt) Limited and Intertoll, have been ordered to introduce an electronic prepaid toll card during the festive season, failing which they will be charged with contempt of Parliament.
The order was made by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Infrastructure when the two companies appeared before it for the second time over the same issue yesterday.
Univern Enterprises said it was ready to implement the new technology, but ducked several questions that they referred to Zinara, which did not turn up for the hearing.
Once implemented, Zinara would receive payments upfront and motorists would use an electronic card to pass through tollgates.
However, the pre-paid toll cards might be difficult to use since those issued by Intertoll can only be used on tollgates along the Plumtree-Mutare highway only.
Committee chairperson Cde Dexter Nduna (Zanu-PF) said it was disturbing that for the second time, the two companies were not offering anything new.
“Let this be the last time we are talking of the same thing,” he said.
“We hope you diligently get the message. We want to raise revenue utilisation from the money that Zimbabweans are paying. We are generating funds as a domestic initiative. If the system is not implemented, we will be forced to institute contempt of Parliament charges. We hope we will soon see the implementation of the cashless system within the festive season,” said Cde Nduna.
Univern Enterprises chief operating officer Mr Warren Cohen said they had introduced prepaid toll cards software at 17 tollgates and 60 000 cards although only 6 000 were in use.
He said the pre-paid cards were being used by corporates, transporters and Zinara.
Mr Cohen said they were working with Intertoll to integrate and enable the cards to work at all tolling sites.
“The card is currently not running on any of the Intertoll side. Communication started in July 2015 for integration into their sites. All of the documents have been completed and we have done some developments to give one solution to customers,” he said.
Cde Nduna said the toll gates should also have road traffic stabilisation centres where accident victims could get assistance.
Mr Cohen responded saying although they were informed of this development recently, and they were willing to work on their back offices so they could offer the service.
“We are willing to work on our back offices to establish the stations. We are at an advanced stage with Zinara on some of the back offices at the toll plazas. If this was approved we would start immediately, beginning of the year.”
Intertoll country operations manager Mr Joseph Mafanuke said they were ready to roll out the prepaid toll card and were only waiting for Zinara’s approval.
“If we get the go-ahead, we can avail the card in one day. We were ready to roll out the toll card by September,” he said.
Some of the committee members said motorists were now using detour routes to evade paying toll gate fees while others did not have the cash due to the current liquidity challenges.
Others complained that long queues at the toll gates were compounding the problem of non-payment.
Mr Mafanuke confirmed the decline in the number of cars passing through the toll gates saying approximately 200 cars per day were evading paying.
Online Reporter