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Zvamaida Murwira Senior Reporter
More than 30 000 vehicles face de-registration after the Central Vehicle Registry yesterday published a notice giving them a one-month ultimatum to regularise as the Government moves to ensure that only properly documented cars use the roads. In a notice published in an Extraordinary Government Gazette yesterday, CVR registrar Mr George Makoni said those vehicles that were not registered should approach their offices or else the Government would outlaw them.

“It is hereby notified, in terms of section 12(c) of the Vehicle Registration and Licensing Act (Chapter 13:14), that the Registrar intends to cancel the registration of vehicles not licensed or exempted for a period of two years as at 12 March 2015, which are listed in the schedule,” read the notice. “Affected parties are hereby notified to approach the Central Vehicle Registry to regularise their vehicles or the Zimbabwe National Road Administration to negotiate a payment plan or pay the outststanding arrears, within thirty days from the date of publication of this notice.”

The schedule with 970 pages contained the vehicle registration number, chassis number, expiry date and the net mass of the 30 770 vehicles. Some of the vehicles had registration licences that expired in 2009 and while others expired in 2013. This comes as the Government moved to update the national vehicle population and enable it to account for each vehicle that uses the country’s roads.

By not registering, the vehicles had not been paying statutory fees despite the fact that most of them were on the roads. The CVR’s records show that the country has 1,4 million vehicles. The de-registration by CVR meant that they would be taken off the zinara’s live database.

This was because some vehicles appeared only on the zinara database and not on the CVR. In an interview recently with The Sunday Mail, Mr Makoni said over the years some people had not come to register or apply for exemption for their vehicles, despite the fact that they remained on the road.

“We did not have tangible evidence to de-register the vehicles but since zinara developed a Live Vehicle Data System (in May 2012), we can now identify the vehicles which have been skipping licensing. “There are vehicles that have been appearing in the Central Vehicle Registry database since 1918 but do not appear in the new zinara database, so the zinara database will be the starting point.

“As of March this year, we had 220 000 vehicles that had not been registered for more than two years. However, as of August 17, the number had declined and these are the vehicles that we are going to de-register.” Once a vehicle is de-registered, its re-registration requires submission of a certificate of road worthiness from the Vehicle Inspectorate Department, police clearance, a fee of $160 for cars and $140 for motorcycles or trailers, and settlement of outstanding licence fees arrears.

Mr Makoni said: “The law prescribes the safety of other vehicles and licence disk is proof that a vehicle will not endanger the lives of other road users. The exercise will also give the actual number of vehicles that are on the roads and this will help Government plan for road infrastructure development in the future.