THE Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development has expressed concern over unregistered vehicles donated by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to various institutions and individuals, saying most of them were still unregistered and posed challenges at tollgates.
CHIEF REPORTER
Transport minister Obert Mpofu said all unregistered vehicles should be regularised within the next 30 days, failing which they would be impounded by law enforcement agencies.
“This ministry has also observed that most ex-RBZ vehicles which were donated to institutions and individuals have not been registered. Old number plates lack features that are compatible with vehicle-reading technology recently installed at tollgates, thus creating passage problems to drivers of such vehicles,” Mpofu said in a statement.
During the tenure of former RBZ governor Gideon Gono, the central bank donated thousands of vehicles to Zanu PF and different government institutions.
Gono had a run-in with Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo over the control of the more than 285 buses donated to various districts by President Robert Mugabe.
In 2010, senior RBZ officials were accused of grabbing dozens of buses, part of a huge fleet bought by the central bank in 2008. The buses, 35-seater Mazda SWARAJ vehicles, some of which had been given out to Zanu PF as part of the central bank’s contribution to the party’s election campaign in 2008, were auctioned off at Gift Investments Company after the RBZ failed to pay the supplier Advance Seed of South Africa.
Mpofu said several vehicles used by government institutions, parastatals, private companies, co-operatives and embassies had also not been regularised.
