via Tollgate revenue doubles September 24, 2014
FINANCE and Economic Development minister Patrick Chinamasa says revenue from tollgates more than doubled following the introduction of an electronic system to replace the manual method.
Tollgates on the country’s roads were introduced in 2009.
Chinamasa told a breakfast meeting yesterday that government was working round the clock to weed out corruption.
“Revenues from plaza were doubling because the control room in Harare sees everything that would be happening at the plaza. We are doing whatever we can,” he said.
“Often some of the people who come to the office to complain about corruption are the very people who are corrupt. My approach is basically we need greater transparency. There is no better deterrent to corruption than transparency.”
He said his ministry was working on a number of measures to bring more transparency to the financial sectors.
“This is why some of the amendments that we are going to bring with respect to the banking sector are basically to enhance transparency in the financial services sector given its key importance to our economy, in respect to corporate governance, to insider lending and so on. If we have that greater transparency it will remove the temptation because no one wants to bribe in broad daylight,” Chinamasa said.
Speaking at the same IMF breakfast meeting in Harare, International Monetary Fund head of mission to Zimbabwe Domenico Fanezzi said government has to be transparent to fight the corruption scourge.
Critics say the anti-corruption dragnet targets the small fish while senior government officials and politicians go scot free.
A preliminary report by the Zimbabwe Policy Analysis Research Unit showed that at least $3 billion could have been spirited out of the country through illicit financial flows in the period 2009 to 2012.
COMMENTS
“Often some of the people who come to the office to complain about corruption are the very people who are corrupt.”
Zanu mode. We have seen in the past people report a crime and being arrested whilst the criminal comes in later and charges the complainant. That is a very silly statement from the Minister.
More loot then for the deep zanupf pockets !!!!! While the potholes now swallow whole buses !!!!!!!!!!
There are so many intersections that need changing and slight alterations to ease traffic congestion. It won’t take much cash but a bit of work. We have commuters driving over a pavements , wrong way up streets all this could be eradicated with a bit of thought! I hope I live that long to see improvements in our road system.
doubling the toll gate charges must have helped I am sure…
Next challenge is if the work on the road will more than double or we will see more than double the ZANU PF youth intimidation of the electorate since there is more funding now for ZANU PF to do dirty work.
Can Chinamasa not tell the nation what exactly the tollgate revenues are on a monthly basis?? In addition we road users need to be reassured that the revenue raised is all going to upgrade and repair our roads.The taxpayers are suspicious that the revenue is being diverted into paymen of government salaries.
A huge proportion of the Toll money being raised seems to be spent on upgrading the roads in Harare. Why can Chinamasa not devise a system to raise the funds to upgrade Harare roads from within the city. There are thousands of KM of roads within the city and also thousands of motorists who pay ZERO toll fees so long as they stay within the city limits, this is unfairto the Country cousins.