Zinara Mounts 24 Hour Roadblocks Plus Door To Door Searches For Unregistered Cars & Motorists

The Zimbabwe National Road Authority (zinara) is now moving into car parks and people’s homes where they are searching for and raiding unregistered and unlicensed cars as the institution seeks to maximise on revenue from motorists.

With a population 1, 2 million cars in the country’s vehicle register about 170 000 had, by last November, not renewed their licences.

Since that time, Zinara has been encouraging people with unlicensed cars to register their properties or risk deregistration.

Zinara officers are also mounting 24 hour roadblocks in the country’s highways with the assistance of the police.

Every vehicle passing through is being inspected.

On Tuesday, Zinara officials pounced on a place called Pama Office in Harare South’s Southlea Park suburb where they raided a number of unregistered vehicles which are used by “pirate” commuter operators.

“They came here and raided even cars which have been parked for more than three months because most people park their faulty cars there,” said one of the commuter operators in the area.

“We have been avoiding them in the highway by using some makeshift roads from here (Southlea Park) to Chitungwiza but this time they have caught us”, another commuter omnibus driver said.

“As if this was not enough, they also moved into people’s homes door to door looking for parked cars which are not registered and they found lots of them in the area,” said a motor mechanic in the area (Pamaoffice).

“We are in the process of removing our old cars for the car parks to the backyards where they cannot see them.”

Defaulting motorists say the licence fees unaffordable.

Zinara, recently hiked vehicle registration and licensing fees, in line with government’s new statutory instrument number 141 of 2013 which was gazetted last year.

Licensing fees for haulage truck trailers were reviewed from US$50 to US$130 for every four months.

A horse truck is now paying US$140 up from US$80.

Ordinary motorists are paying between US$30 and US$40 up from US$20 depending on the weight of the vehicle.

Licence fees for buses stand at US$120 up from US$80. source-newzimbabwe