Toll gate chaos
August 25th, 2009
Toll gate set up near Esigodini
With effect from the 8th August 2009, road tolls were introduced on Zimbabwe Roads. Charges range from 1 to 5 US$ per vehicle, payable at several points on the city to city trunk roads and at entry points into the country. Collection is done by ZIMRA agents (customs and excise) in conjunction with Zimbabwe Republic Police roadblocks.
The roadblocks are causing confusion amongst Zimbabweans, and a colleague of mine relayed a conversation he had with a farmer in the Esigodini area, which conveys the impact the toll gates may have on daily lives.
This local farmer apparently sends his lorry into Bulawayo with vegetables for the city three times a day. His truck has to pass through the toll point between Bulawayo and Beitbridge (border town), which has been set up set up before the town of Esigodini forty km from Bulawayo. This farmer told my colleague that he had worked out that his toll payments will be about 620 US dollars per month.
The initial toll week was a shambles: the toll collector ran out of receipts, and I saw one of them walking up and down the queues of angry motorists with nothing but a receipt book, and the payments carelessly stuffed in his coat pocket. Not a cash box in sight, and absolutely no change available unless you cause a massive fuss.
Each transaction seemed to take twenty minutes to complete. My colleague told me that the aforementioned vegetable farmer had also worked out that his lorry driver will lose two hours a day or forty-four man hours a month by going through the lengthy toll procedure three times a day.
The Minister of Transport, Communications and Infrastructural Development, Nicholas Goche, said 90% of the toll fees would be given to his Ministry, which would in turn forward the money to the Zimbabwe National Road Authority. The funds would then be forwarded to the Department of Roads, local authorities and the District Development Fund.
The remaining 10%, he said would be given to the Ministry of Finance to cover administrative costs involved in the running of the tollgates. The Minister said government vehicles would not be exempted from paying toll fees and that residents in areas surrounding the tollgates would be given special discs
The government has had two years to prepare for this momentous occasion, and still no solar panels for computerisation, no lighting at all during the night, no phones, no water is available at the site, and the toilet facilities are primitive to say the least.
The dangers involved to the toll collectors is very real: one road user told me about tables being set in the middle of the road, and a very brave man or women sitting at the table with a receipt book ready, waiting as cars hurtle down trunk roads directly towards them! A brave person indeed when you think of those giant 18 wheelers and the speed at which they travel from RSA through Zimbabwe en route to Malawi and Zambia.
The most annoying thing to me is that we cannot even blame Gono any more !
August 25th, 2009 23:01
These stories absolutely exasperate me. There are millions of Zimbabweans overseas, many of whom would be a great asset to our beautiful country, looking ever-hopefully towards home. And these stories are just nauseous – another form of taxation, badly organised and executed, with absolutely no accountability or guarantee, that any significant portion of the money collected will be used for the purpose, for which it has been supposedly collected.
I note that a huge wage hike has also recently been announced – back-dated by a number of months. This can only be a deliberate attempt to kill off any businesses, which have managed to survive as long as they have. I know wages are low, and I know wage hikes are necessary. However no honest business can absorb the losses caused by back-dated expenses. How can they budget for this? Wage increases must be announced in advance with sufficient time for businesses to adjust. What on earth is the point of killing off the last vestiges of business surviving in Zimbabwe?
David Wheeler.
August 25th, 2009 23:05
And – while I am still in rant mode –
I think that it would be a good idea – for a while at least – to remove the censorship of comments on this website. Let us try some freedom of speech. There may be a lot of foolish comments made, but let’s listen to them, and answer them, rather than suppressing them. Either we are for freedom of speech or we are against it.
David Wheeler.
August 26th, 2009 10:30
The comments are not censored David – they are moderated in line with our principles, and I believe there is a difference and I do not believe that this threatens free speech. Sokwanele’s objective is to promote democracy, free speech, tolerance, respect and non violence etc. We are ultimately an advocacy group and we have to decide whether it is in the interest of our objectives to allow our blog to be used as a platform for anything which works against our core values or not. We have decided to keep our blog focussed entirely on our objectives. Almost any opinion will be published provided it is articulated respectfully and without hate racism violence etc. So our moderation policy is not a barrier to free speech, its a challenge to express different views in a civilised way in line with the values of tolerance and respect for all readers from different backgrounds.
A big plus for visitors to the site, is that the moderation also prevents spammers from littering our comments with endless adverts for odd medications, where to sell your gold, or forex trading! As robust as our spam control is, it’s like trying to hold back a tidal wave. You’d have to read a lot of rubbish to find the proper comments if we didn’t moderate.
Hope.
August 26th, 2009 13:51
You Sokwanele are a big liar. I have driven through these toll gates and there is no absolute problem with the overall running of the system. You will not even spend 10 seconds on that point. STOP LYING ABOUT ISSUES YOU ARE NOT EXPERIENCING. You shameless propagandist.