adminlicensing fees to the Zimbabwe National Road Administration.
We warned before that such motorists do not deserve any mercy from law enforcement agents and we repeat that the law should take its course on such offenders.
When it comes to complaints on the state of our roads, we get a chorus and we believe some of the complainants are those that have not bothered to pay their licences for years. We reported yesterday that Zinara had impounded 432 vehicles in Harare in an exercise targeting vehicles without valid licence discs.
This followed the realisation that less than half of the country’s 800 000 vehicles were registered with Zinara. According to Zinara, there were 432 000 vehicles that were actively registered on its database but only 348 000 had valid licence discs, implying that 83 500 vehicle owners had not renewed their licences.
Judging from the figures of 780 caught for not having licensed cars by March 13, with 432 motorists having their vehicles impounded, there is still a lot of work required to ensure adherence to our laws.
Zinara, the police and the Vehicle Inspection Department are checking vehicles in Harare’s Central Business District for compliance and those without valid licences are clamped and towed away. We believe motorists should just do the right thing and avoid the embarrassment of having their vehicles towed away.
Also, the increased volume of traffic on our roads is a major contributory factor to the poor state of some of the roads, hence the need for motorists to pay their licences so that our roads are maintained.
According to Zinara, if the over 80 000 vehicle owners were to pay their licence fees; the roads authority would raise more than US$3,8 million.
There might be need to introduce stern measures to act as a deterrent to motorists who do not want to pay their licence fees. If bicycle owners and scotch-cart owners licence their means of transport, why should motorists find it difficult to license theirs?
We believe habitual offenders should be taken to court instead of just towing their vehicles away.
Unlicensed vehicles are a danger to other motorists, passengers and pedestrians since in most cases they do not have insurance cover and in the case of an accident, they disadvantage the victims.
It is against this background that we feel stricter penalties are required to discourage motorists from neglecting their duty of licensing their vehicles.
It is even worse for public service vehicles since failure to license the vehicles would be a sign that there would be something amiss with the condition of the vehicle since they are required to produce a certificate of fitness.
We appeal to motorists and remind them that it is a legal obligation that they must take seriously.
Our police force and Zinara officers have more pressing issues and the money used in such follow-up exercises could be used to improve our roads instead of being deployed to chase after law breakers.
While the exercise is limited to Harare for now, we believe motorists outside the capital should not wait until they are caught but pay their licences without further delay.
It is the right thing to do, especially since as motorists we expect better service from Zinara, that relies on motorists for funding.
Online Reporter