GOVERNMENT says it has acquired land to construct a transport management centre to enable all State transport departments such as Central Vehicle Registry (CVR), Vehicle Inspectorate Department (VID) and Road Motor Transport to co-ordinate their activities under one roof.
by VENERANDA LANGA
Transport ministry permanent secretary, Munesu Munodawafa told stakeholders during the 2017 National Budget consultations in Harare on Friday that the transport hub would be built in Kuwadzana.
“We want to build a transport management centre to house CVR, VID and other departments and we have acquired 3,3 hectares of land near Kuwadzana roundabout,” he said.
“The cost of the land was around $630 000 and we believe once our plan is approved, we will remove chaos and congestion at VID depots in Eastlea, Belvedere and at CVR.”
Bulawayo Metropolitan Senator Tholakele Khumalo (MDC) implored the government to build more flyovers in Harare, saying there was too much traffic and breaking of traffic rules to the extent that it was difficult for people to even cross the streets.
She said there was need to take care of environmental concerns and climate change issues, where some cars were polluting the air through smoking.
Munodawafa said there would be need to increase VID depots throughout the country to enforce checking of cars and ensure they were not polluting the environment, as well as their roadworthiness.
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“We need to first increase the presence of VID [offices] because that is the institution that can deal with smoking cars. We only have 23 VID centres and need to solve the issue of capacity to inspect vehicles and we have identified 12 new VID centres in other towns,” he said.
The transport secretary said funding problems had hampered progress in building these new centres.
Affirmative Action Group representative, Tapiwa Chigondora said the rising levels of corruption by VID officers was worrying and needed to be checked by the Transport ministry.
“VID officers are building villas from proceeds they get out of corrupt activities, while VID facilities are dilapidated, for example, the Chinhoyi VID,” Chigondora said.
Obert Sibanda, of the Zimbabwe Building Operators, proposed that Cabinet ministers, MPs and other officials exempted from paying toll fees should, at least, pay something or get an allowance from their workplaces to pay for toll fees, as it was depriving Zimbabwe National Roads Administration revenue to fix the dilapidated roads.
