Move with time, traffic authorities

Once upon a time, there were creatures as huge as most of the tall buildings in Harare called dinosaurs. These creatures bulldozed their way through anything that dared impede its path, until the creature's environment changed and posed greater threat to their lives.

Sadly, dinosaurs are now extinct as they could not adaptively adjust to the changing trends.

Human beings, as God rightfully ordained mankind with authority over all creation, are deemed the most intelligent of all animals. Thus, with great power comes greater responsibility. As I am writing I am not cock sure whether or not we have dinosaurs as heads of various key sectors or departments in Zimbabwe.

Some of the problems, especially those to do with daily service delivery are on a free flow owing to laxity by heads of department to improvise and move with times. My opinion is motivated by the issue of spot fines that saw Justice Francis Bere articulating that no law compelled motorists to oblige to these collections.

Without pointing fingers it is prudent that I quickly point out that, all the confusion emanates from the porous governance systems which are obsolete.  We are at the height of computer era where knowledge is unlimited and technology is at the verge of taking over most of human done jobs. Technology is the missing link in this case anyway.

To justify this, If you go to the police over the issue of spot fines, their defence is we are not capacitated to track down offenders and follow up on fines.

This is despite the fact that the fines have been collected for long enough to afford an apparatus to tame the traffic jungle. There has been no effort (in public knowledge) to centralize the data bases of Zimbabwe National Roads Authority (ZINARA), Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) and Central Vehicle Registry (CVR).

These authorities collect revenue daily and can afford to upgrade if the will to deliver is their prime concern.

One wonders what hinders initiatives such as merging all the data bases to ZINARA which is seized with the licensing of vehicles. Ideally, if a motorist is fined there has to be mechanism which will see their fine being entered into ZINARA data base and be settled upon the next term of licensing. Failure to do so which can then necessitate the impounding of the vehicle.

Upon registering a vehicle at CVR, all the contact and identification details are captured making it a reliable data base. The same goes with Zinara which has managed to digitalize its toll gates.

It is not healthy to have law enforcers and the judiciary tussle. Perhaps the spot fines are convenient for police operations but looking at a macrocosm scale of the issue, the government will benefit more if the system is centralized.

If the monies find their way to Zinara, it will contribute to the national fiscus as the road authority will remit to the treasury by the end of the day.