adminIN an interesting, recent news article, carried by The Herald, it is said that the Government intends to “soon”, introduce compulsory inspection (Compulsory Vehicle Inspection or CVI in this contribution) for public and private vehicles at Vehicle Inspection Department depots countrywide.The official thinking may be that the majority of vehicles on our deplorable roads enjoy scant service, charitably nourishing the shocking, determined and frequent bloodbath that continues to decimate life and equipment, the recent appalling Chisumbanje disaster being just a characteristic example of what can and does go wrong on what others christen, the ‘Highways of Death’.
The top-selling daily paper quotes the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Development, Dr. Obert Mpofu as saying, “the Government is meeting to introduce a compulsory vehicle inspection regulation and there will be penalties for those found on the wrong side of the law.”
Obviously, such a calculated promulgation from a highly-placed authority means it’s as good as done. The clear-as-daylight consequence, on raising such a matter, is to immediately generate enormous emotional debate by all road users; encompassing public transport operators, private car owners, formal motor organisations such as the Automobile Association of Zimbabwe (AAZ), Motor Traders Association (MTA), Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (ZINARA), the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe (TSCZ) and other relevant public and private organisations with an inherent interest in matters road traffic.
Most probably, the first question that any interested observer would want to ask is, a full-size “WHY”? Don’t we already enjoy sufficient, enabling statutes in our books, to effectively manage any-and-all situations pertaining to the safe management of road motor traffic? If the answer is in the affirmative, then do we need yet another burdensome edict when we cannot in the meantime, adequately and efficiently police our gone-to-the-dogs traffic, with what we already have?
In fact, the transport authorities may want to enable, as a matter-of-course, an independent forum for concerned parties to be heard freely as the pertinent questions should be innumerable. (To their credit, the Ministry of Transport not-so-long-ago solicited public and stakeholder opinion via the Transport Parliamentary Portfolio Committee and this contributor was luckily invited to air his stiff views on the then sizzling matter of to-ban or not-to-ban LHD vehicle use in Zimbabwe, in the hallowed environs of Parliament.)
The Minister of Transport is also quoted as saying, “The VID is the most important department in the Ministry.
They offer vehicle fitness (certification), test driving and driver licencing.
However, I have noticed that they are facing challenges regarding their equipment which is in a state of disrepair.
They provide an essential service, therefore, we will help the VID to be self-sufficient by upgrading their services through computerisation and commercialisation.’’ Comrade Minister, here is the easy-to-answer question; the vital compulsory inspection (CVI) to be administered by the same overburdened, underwhelming VID?
Sadly, the eager, get-on-with-it Minister has in his bulky portfolio, the much-infamous and I presume, little-loved VID. Alongside the ZRP Traffic, they are widely-regarded (fairly or unfairly) as possibly the two most-corrupt state institutions in Zimbabwe, yet, by legislation, were designed to play a critical, frontline-role of managing and helping to police our now-deadly road traffic in Zimbabwe! The VID bad-boys (and girls) to manage what? The irony could not be thicker!
Granted, here we have what on paper is a fantastic, maybe even overdue scheme to ensure the plenty ramshackle jalopies are forever excluded from our roads. But then, what is the worldwide best-practice with Compulsory Vehicle Inspection? Which nation/s run such and how do they do it? Any in Africa and what challenges do they face and how do they resolve them?
My take though is that the UK runs what is possibly one of the very best and oldest (since 1960!) of such CVI concepts in the world. Wikipedia: “The Ministry of Transport test (usually abbreviated to MOT test) is an annual test of automobile safety, road worthiness aspects and exhaust emissions required for most vehicles over three years old used on public roads in the United Kingdom.”
Wikipedia adds, “The MOT test certificates are currently issued in Great Britain under the auspices of the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA), an agency within the Department for Transport.
“Certificates in Northern Ireland are issued by the Driver and Vehicle Agency (DVA). The test and the pass certificate are often referred to simply as the ‘MOT’.
“Some 20 100 local car repair garages throughout Great Britain, employing a phenomenal 53 000 testers are authorised to perform testing and to issue certificates. In principle any individual can apply to run an MOT station although in order to gain authorisation from VOSA, both the individual wanting to run the station as well as the premises need to meet stringent minimum criteria set out by the government.”
My humble take, therefore, is that should we get this ambitious, game-changing scheme off the ground, this may be the time to kill the ill-repute of the VID by involving well-resourced private players with established garages and formally trained mechanics.
That would largely solve the headache of testing hundreds of thousands of vehicles!
Of course, any misconduct by a licensed agent or their staff means they would stand to lose a potentially lucrative government-issue testing licence.
Shunting detrimental politics aside, can we not study this long-established, successful MOT test? What manpower, and critically, what equipment(s) are obligatory for such an undertaking?
How exactly are the private operators tasked with such an onerous national task? How does the government ensure full-compliance; that every road-going vehicle is satisfactorily tested annually, and passed before getting back on the road?
And for us, critically, the small matter of the immoral backhander?
My point is, with such a massive CVI undertaking in the offing, recruiting an experienced international private corporate to help initiate the programme maybe an idea worth exploring. I believe from their obvious huge advances in technology and computerised management systems, managing astonishingly huge vehicle databases, they have the requisite know-how to seamlessly get us off the ground.
Harare City, after honourably admitting complete failure in running the on-street and parkade parking, did, in my book, the praiseworthy by hiring out the whole operation to an experienced South African entity which in little time, brought in structures that completely revolutionised their parking operations – and reasonably increased the inflow of revenue.
In this same breath, I would urge the Ministry of Transport to robustly consider, enact and enforce provisions for the compulsory destruction of certain obviously dilapidated motor vehicles that it boggles the mind the thing can even be driven at all!
Again, some developed nations have long experience on what to do with a dead, un-revivable metal wreck. We have thousands of such vehicle shells that litter our landscape and we need to find a practical solution to the commonplace littering of that type.
Any genuine measure that improves the safety of road users must surely be welcome, as long as it isn’t just another unpopular money-spinning scheme in a mask. The perception is that, notwithstanding our dire economic condition, Zimbabweans already suffocate under the yoke of taxation in copious forms. Is this not then another smart way to raise money for the green-back-hungry, bottomless fiscus?
The emotive, unavoidable, almighty question is how are you Minister going to stop the VID officers from getting bribed and unleash un-roadworthy vehicles on our roads? We see it all around us, left and right; the plenty dilapidated commuter omnibus vehicles which are involved in fatal accidents yet they had “passed” a supposedly rigorous VID test.
In addition, the same creaky jalopy, frequently overloaded, on the highway, will pass unhindered, several police roadblocks on its inexorable march to the Killing Fields.
My hand, a little hesitant, is up for the introduction of the CVI programme. The same hand, nevertheless, discontentedly would flutter down if CVI was to be the mother-of-all anarchy and just another national embarrassment. Please, as a nation, we already “enjoy” enough pandemonium courtesy of the woeful VID. Leisurely adding fuel to fire would be foolish.
(I digress. To be fair, the new Transport minister is on the scene with a lot of drive, passion even a little obsession.
To exploit the cliché, he has hit the ground running! Do we, the stakeholders, anxiously expecting him to deliver, prop him up, or do we, even when it’s still early days, ignominiously spike him in the back. Or, do we give him liberal room to establish himself… long-enough rope to hang himself?)
Gerald Maguranyanga moderates RoSA (Road Safety Africa), a new interactive FaceBook page that solicits ideas to curb RTAs (road traffic accidents) in Zimbabwe and Africa.
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