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Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter
Government has expressed satisfaction with the computerisation of the Zimbabwe National Road Administration (zinara) operations, saying the new high-end technological systems have resulted in increased revenue collection and curbing of crimes related to vehicle theft.

This was revealed by Members of Parliament after touring Univern Enterprises, which partnered zinara to computerise tolling, vehicle licensing and road transit fees.

Following computerisation of the vehicle licensing system in 2012, revenue collection which was standing at $22 million jumped to $70 million in 2019, while tolling collections increased from $6 million in 2013 to $36 million in 2019.

After touring Univern Enterprises’ state-of-the-art technological systems in Harare on Tuesday, chairman of the Transport and Infrastructural Development Committee, Cde Oscar Gorerino, commended Univern Enterprises for coming up with modern innovations that had increased revenue and helped to ensure compliance by motorists.

“Most of our members have actually commended what you are doing, but we hope you will continue to do better than what we have seen today and we hope next time when we visit we must see better achievements as well,” Cde Gorerino said.

Another legislator, Mrs Lynette Karenyi-Kore (MDC-Alliance), expressed confidence in the systems which she said had answered several questions that they had as legislators.

“This has been an eye0-opener and we hope you will continue the good work because we have learnt much we did not know before this visit,” she said.

“This visit has been an eye-opener and has answered a number of misconceptions that we had.”
In his brief to the legislators, Univern Enterprises chief executive officer Mr Phil Mushosho said: “We have integrated all Government departments that have to do with vehicles and that is on-going and I am glad to say we are making progress.

“The Honourable Members will be glad to know that we have computerised VID learner licence, the provisional licence is now computer based and we are rolling that out to other parts of the country. Our major objective as Univern is to ensure that Government gets maximum revenue from this arrangement and that is why I have emphasised from the onset that this is a Public Private Partnership arrangement designed to benefit both parties.”

Mr Mushosho said the computerisation of vehicle licensing and tolling, among others, had seen an increase in revenue to Government departments such as the Transport Safety Council of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe National Roads Authority and the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority.

The Electronic Learner’s Licence Testing System which was launched by Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Joel Biggie Matiza in April, which is another PPP achievement between Government and Unvivern Enterprises, served to reduce human involvement when one wants to acquire a provisional drivers’ licence.