The Zimbabwe tollgate at the 18 km peg along the Harare/Masvingo highway
Ever since they were commissioned on 8 August 2009 Zimbabwe's tollgates have been a major source of discontent and controversy within the motoring public.
It has never been clear if the tollgates are run by the Public Service bureaucracy in the ministry of Transport and Infrastructural development or whether they are run as a quasi government operation that is autonomous from Treasury control and instructions.
At inception the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development, Nicholas Goche, disclosed that 90% of the revenues realized at tollgates would be retained by his Ministry, which would in turn forward the money to the Zimbabwe National Road Authority (ZINARA).
ZINARA would then distribute the funds among the Department of Roads, local authorities and the District Development Fund for use on road infrastructure maintenance and development.
The balance 10%, he said would be remitted to the Ministry of Finance to cover administrative costs involved in the running of the tollgates.
The Minister said government vehicles would not be exempted from paying toll fees and that residents in areas surrounding the tollgates would be given special discs.
Small vehicle road users pay US$1 to cross the toll gates, buses and lorries pay $5 whereas Motorbikes and cyclists do not pay anything.
MP’s reportedly refused to pay the fees while the collection process was reportedly very slow and frustrating for motorists with outages of stationery being reported at some sites.
The 22 sites have also been criticized for their inconvenient citing in that they have resulted in some residents in a local area being subjected to the charges.
As an example on the Harare/Masvingo highway the tollgate is situated at the 18 kilometer peg a kilometer before the Manyame River Bridge at the Skyline Hotel.
The Hotel residence and patrons as well as the Harare Golf Club residents and patrons across the bridge who have traditionally been subject to Harare Municipal rates and service charges have to pay toll fees unless they are granted special dispensation discs which would be unlikely for hotel and golf patrons.
The tollgates are now reportedly racking in close to US$2million monthly and have so far earned the government $7million confirmed revenue in the first four months of their operation.
“The major roads are earning the government US$1,7 million every month,” Transport Minister Nicholas Goche told parliament on Wednesday17 February 2010.
Transport and Infrastructure Development chief executive Frank Chitukutuku further disclosed that (ZINARA) is currently sitting on $4 million raised from the toll gates due to delays in the collection of money granted to local authorities and the department of roads.
"For the period from 18 August 2008 to 31st December 2009, the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) collected a total of US$6,746,496 on the 22 tollgate sites.
"After a 10 percent deduction for Zimra's administration fees, US$2 million was disbursed to eight provinces for the maintenance of regional, primary and a limited secondary road network."
From the figures disclosed it would appear ZIMRA is earning $170 000 per month from the 22 tollgates manned by a total of 352 employees it has assigned to the tollgate operation.
The tollgates are manned by a team of 16 people that alternate in three shifts. Since these workers draw their incomes from Treasury it would be interesting if ZIMRA could explain the expenses that justify its 10% levy on tollgate fees.
In our view this charge is excessive and unjustified unless Zimra pays its workers there from and not from taxpayer’s funds.
Tollgate revenues must be restricted to road maintenance and repairs as well as design and development of highways and link road networks and not to pay Zimra which charges the fiscus through a vote of expenditure passed by Parliament in every budget.
The dispensation on ZIMRA to levy charges on another government department encourages unwelcome fragmentation of the Public Service which will develop into parallel structures that are not accountable to the Treasury.
That will ultimately result in salary distortions within the Public service as the revenue collecting ministries will demand a share of the revenue to use on benefits for its departmental workers that non revenue collecting ministries cannot afford.
The bureaucracy in distribution of toll revenues is not justified at all as it only encourages handling leakages.
Zimra should simply collect and Bank revenues in the Exchequer Account and then charge its expenses to the same account.
Slush funds for government departments have been known to have been abused by the departments running parallel structures and indulging in corrupt dissent against government directives.
Already funds from tollgates appear to have been abused in Mashonaland West and Matabeleland South Provinces and its going taxpayers’ money to unearth what happened and restitution will not be possible.
There is nothing special let alone urgent about road maintenance and repairs to justify the department’s autonomy in accounting for toll fees.
If anything there is need for greater multi disciplinary team involvement in roads infrastructure design, development and maintenance to justify closer central government supervision of the allotments it makes to local authorities from toll fees.
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