By Wallace Mawire.
Harare, Zimbabwe. (News Of The South) – Stakeholders in the tourism sector concerned about rampant corruption by traffic police on Zimbabwe’s roads have urged authourities to consider use of ICTs to improve policing on the country’s roads.
Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Dr Misheck Sibanda at a recent conference on the ease of doing business in the tourism sector held in Harare said that cognisant of the need to guarantee safety and security on the country’s roads, government has continued to mount road blocks on the country’s highways.
“However, clients and stakeholders have complained about the number of roadblocks encountered and corruption,” Dr Sibanda said.
Stakeholders have complained that the frequency of police road blocks on highways should facilitate rather than impede movement of people and tourists.
Emmanuel Fundira, Chairperson of the Safari Operators Association of Zimbabwe (SOAZ) told delegates that it is time government introduces ICTs in road policing to combat corruption and fleecing of citizens.
Fundira said some of the mechanisms have been introduced in other countries such as Brazil and South Africa.
“It is time we minimise the physical presence of police on our roads and introduce road cameras and other technologies to minimise extortion and ripping off of clients including foreigners,” he said.
Corruption is reported to have massive negative impact on economic development since funds meant for economic progress are diverted into individual pockets.
Fundira said the police should be fully resourced to introduce such mechanisms like in other countries and move with international trends.
Dexter Nduna,Member of parliament for Chegutu West constituency and chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport concurred that there was now an urgent need to computerise and introduce road policing mechanisms to minimise corruption.
Nduna said his committee was planning to have a road sector stakeholder dialogue meeting to address the major challenges and issues in the road sector.
He also said that his committee was proposing to invite Dr Ignatius Chombo, the minister of Home Affairs to parliament to answer to the issues related to policing on the roads and rampant corruption in the force.
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