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Lloyd Gumbo Senior Reporter
Government’s integration of systems under the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development to enhance enforcement of laws and reduce revenue leakages, has started with the Central Vehicle Registry (CVR) already connected to about 350 sites being run by the Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (zinara).

The new system would enable Vehicle Theft Squad to immediately track stolen vehicles before crossing borders, zimra to flush out counterfeit Custom Clearance Certificates (CCCs), Vehicle Inspection Department (VID) to do on-the-spot vehicle inspection and flush out unroadworthy public service vehicles while Road Motor Transportation (RMT) and the road administration will synchronise passenger vehicle licensing.

zinara and CVR are already linked up and it is believed that when all the departments are connected, the country would generate more revenue from tollgates, while illegal importation of vehicles would be curtailed.

Appearing before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Infrastructural Development in Harare yesterday, officials from Univern Enterprises that has partnered zinara in the computerisation exercise, said the system sought to interconnect agencies under the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development with Home Affairs and Local Government ministries as well as zimra. Agencies under the Transport Ministry include the CVR, VID, RMT and zinara.

zinara officials headed by board chairperson, Mr Albert Mugabe and acting chief executive officer, Engineer Moses Juma, also appeared before the same committee chaired by Zanu-PF MP for Chegutu West, Cde Dexter Nduna.

Said Univern director, Mr Laurence Sher: “There was a delay in information getting to CVR on change of ownership and registrations, which has been dealt with via a unified system, which is a link between CVR and zinara.”

“With zinara’s facilitation of their registering offices, which is around 350 live sites around the country, combining that into CVR has now made CVR live at 350 sites, which actually went live yesterday (Monday).”

He said the system was highly secured to the extent that only CVR had access to vehicle ownership database while zinara would not access that information despite being linked.

Mr Sher said zimra was also in the process of being linked up to the integrated system, which would see them registering vehicles on the system compared to a situation where they relied on customs clearance certificates that could be tempered with.