Red tape blights civil servants' vehicle import scheme

EVERAL civil servants' vehicles imported under a duty-free scheme are stuck at the country's borders accumulating storage costs as the Finance and Economic Development ministry has not yet processed exemption documents.

In 2019, government dangled several carrots to incentivise its workers after they threatened to down tools over poor working conditions. Among the incentives was a duty-free car import scheme.

But the vehicle scheme has been hit by bureaucratic bottlenecks after some applications submitted to the Finance ministry last year are yet to be processed.

The ministry's spokesperson Clive Mpambela told NewsDay that the affected civil servants should make individual complaints and submit evidence to the ministry.

"The complainants should make formal submissions for their issue with the ministry and provide the evidence to you as the media and the ministry," he said.

One of the affected civil servants said he was being charged $800 per day in storage fees at Beitbridge Border Post.

"At the end, the rebate will come to naught," the civil servant said.

"There are many of us in that predicament. I have heard that some civil servants have been waiting for months on end to get their vehicles cleared."

An application for clearance seen by NewsDay showed that a senior civil servant sought authority to import a vehicle in August last year and it has since arrived but is gathering dust at a storage facility outside the country.

"It's actually cheaper to store it outside. I cannot afford the local rates. I am tired of waiting for the car," said a senior civil servant who preferred anonymity.

Statutory Instrument 52 of 2019 was promulgated in 2019 to allow civil servants to import vehicles duty-free. It was later supported by Public Service Commission circular number 6/2019.

The letters seen by NewsDay showed that they applied through their ministry only to reach a dead end at the Finance ministry.

A vehicle import agent said he sent 13 applications to the Finance ministry for civil servants' vehicles.

Unconfirmed reports also reveal that some government officials asked for bribes to speed up the process.

"At times we blame the government but there are some people who deliberately delay the process. It is also my view that these applications should be processed at the port of entry because civil servants are easy to identify," the agent said.