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Cde Nduna

Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter
VARIOUS agencies under the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development are beginning to register significant revenue growth after an exercise to integrate their systems. Government installed the new system in partnership with Univern Enterprises. Appearing before the Portfolio Committee on Transport and Infrastructural Development chaired by Chegutu West representative Cde Dexter Nduna yesterday, permanent secretary in the ministry Ambassador Machivenyika Mapuranga said there has been an improvement in revenue collection since the installation of the system.

He said $1,8 million had been collected in cover notes, $5,4 million in stamp duty, while the Transport Safety Council has collected $8,5 million. In addition to the Zimbabwe National Road Administration (zinara) collecting $2,1 million in facilitation fees, insurance companies have also grossed $94 million. Ambassador Mapuranga said the computerisation of agencies under the ministry was part of a wider programme by Government to improve efficiency in running of various departments.

“What we have here is best understood in the context of the Zim-Asset economic blueprint which was adopted in 2013. Through that project, Government committed itself to what I can call an ambitious programme to modernise all its systems through a concerted computerisation system by the Office of the President and Cabinet.

“It was and still is meant to improve the economic performance of our country through a massive modernisation and computerisation of Government agencies in partnership with private sector players, or through joint venture agreements through the public sector and private sector. It was made clear that the Government intention was to move away from patchwork of uncoordinated, fragmented information systems through single, organic and integrated information systems,” he said.

Univern director Mr Laurence Sher said the system they installed had capacity to deal with Passenger Personal Accident insurance and to reduce leakages caused by the current system that is operated manually.

“The capacity is there. Currently on insurance alone, there is 326 sites, so there isn’t an insurance company that’s issuing any form of insurance related to vehicles that is not already linked to the system. It doesn’t need major infrastructure; it’s a small process to link this,” Mr Sher said.

Cde Nduna said his committee was concerned by the lack of personal insurance cover to most accidents victims. “The reason this is very serious to us is that during the last major accidents, Government had to fork out money in order to alleviate the needs of the masses. The reason we want this to be computerised is that it can be genuine so that people can be compensated when they die,” Cde Nduna said.