MDC-T urges public resistance to tolls

via MDC-T urges public resistance to tolls 07 January 2015

THE MDC-T has urged the public to resist plans by government to construct 32 additional toll gates countrywide saying people should demand transparency in the use of the revenue collected from the already existing structures.

Announcing the plan Tuesday, transport minister Obert Mpofu insisted that the government was not going to be deterred by public complaints.

Mpofu said government wanted to fund its operations which will include the rehabilitation of dilapidated roads in the next 12 months. He said the first 10 toll gates would be introduced before April this year as government seeks to raise $220 million from toll fees and vehicle licences up from $132 raised in 2014.

But the Morgan Tsvangirai-led party said the fees which government is collecting now should be used to maintain the country’s high ways which are “littered with huge potholes” instead.

Spokesperson Obert Gutu told Newzimbabwe.com that the money collected through the existing 24 tollgates “is not channelled towards the intended purpose of road maintenance as well as road construction”.

As such Gutu urged public resistance to the planned toll gates.

“The MDC calls upon the patriotic people of Zimbabwe to thunderously oppose and resist the proposed construction of 32 additional tollgates,” said Gutu.

Gutu said Zimbabwe’s roads are “now a death trap, mainly due to the failure by the Zanu PF regime to properly and constantly maintain the country’s highways using money collected from the existing 24 tollgates”.

He said it was not a wise idea to construct more toll gates “at a time when the majority of the people of Zimbabwe are living in abject poverty and squalor”.

Gutu said the government was diverting the current revenue collections.

“Instead of maintaining the country’s roads using the tollgate fees, the rogue Zanu PF regime diverts the money collected to pay civil servants’ salaries as well as bankrolling the wasteful expenditure of the bloated bureaucracy that includes several ministers and deputy ministers,” he said.

Gutu added: “It is abundantly clear that the sum of US$132 million that was collected in 2014 from the 24 tollgate has been misused and abused by the rogue Zanu PF regime. The country’s major roads remain in a dilapidated condition and indeed, there is no single tarred road in Zimbabwe that is not littered with huge potholes”.

Last week the MDC Renewal Team blamed government for the road accidents that the country experienced over the just ended festive holiday which recorded over 100 deaths in a period of less than one month.

The party said failure by government to maintain the roads was causing road accidents.