Highway tax takes toll on Zimbabwe

Thulani Mpofu, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: November 04. 2009 9:31PM UAE / November 4. 2009 5:31PM GMT

Motorists are complaining that the country's roads should have been repaired before any tolls were imposed. AP Photo

ESIGODINI, ZIMBABWE // Zimbabwe has introduced toll fees for motorists using its major highways to help generate funds to rehabilitate its collapsing and dangerous road network.

Under the new system, motorists driving light vehicles now pay US$1 (Dh3.6), buses pay $3 and lorries pay $5 at 22 toll gates that were erected at strategic positions on the country’s trunk roads.

The tolls collected around $676,000 in the first 12 days after the fees were introduced on August 18, the minister of transport communication and infrastructural development, Nicholas Goche, said recently. Large potholes, faded markings and non-existent road signs can make driving on Zimbabwean roads a nightmarish affair.

Thembinkosi Sibindi, 38, a lorry driver, said that while the tolls were an extra expense for motorists, they are necessary.

“Maintaining a road network such as ours requires large sums of money, which the government doesn’t have,” he said, passing a tollgate at Esigodini, 37km east of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city.

“If the government uses the money to rehabilitate, maintain, build new [roads] and widen existing ones, I will be happy. A road like the Harare-Beitbridge motorway is too narrow for the traffic that uses it, so it must be dualised.”

The 580km Harare-Beitbridge road is the country’s busiest as it links Zimbabwe and its northern neighbours Zambia, Malawi and Democratic Republic of Congo to the continental economic powerhouse, South Africa.

It is a narrow, two-lane motorway that is riddled with potholes, which makes it more prone to accidents. At least 50 people have died in accidents on the road since January, the highest profile victim being the wife of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, Susan, who died in March. Mr Tsvangirai was being driven to his rural home together with his wife, when the car they were in was sideswiped by a lorry, whose driver had lost control after hitting a ditch on the road, according to media reports.

Givemore Kufa, the head of the technical department at the Zimbabwe National Road Authority (Zinara), said toll fees would significantly boost the road fund.

This year, Zinara is expected to bring in $50 million from a tax levelled on fuel, vehicle licensing and the new tolls, which Mr Kufa hopes will contribute $20 million annually. But this total still falls woefully short. “Toll gates will contribute but not much, looking at the poor state of our roads,” said Mr Kufa.

“We project to raise $50 million yearly, yet we need $2 billion just to spruce up our roads. However, if we get the $50 million annually and the government doesn’t meddle in the fund, we will [be able to] do something.”

He said Zimbabwe’s road network is 85,000km long, of which only 17,000km is paved.

“Most of the network has deteriorated to a stage where it doesn’t need ordinary maintenance,” said Mr Kufa.

Much like the highways themselves, the infrastructure at the toll gates is rudimentary.

Officials collect the tax and write receipts manually from desks placed at the centre of the road. Prefabricated structures and tents at each toll station provide shelter and portable toilets are pitched by the roadside for use by the tax collectors.

One of the most pressing issues, in a largely agricultural country, is that farmers are seeking exemption from paying the road tax.

“The nature of our business is that farmers drive into town twice or thrice daily to deliver produce or buy inputs,” [products used on the farm such as seeds and fertiliser, said Donald Khumalo, Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union secretary general.

Nyarai Murema, 44, a motorist, said the government should have rehabilitated the roads first before charging tolls. By not offering alternative routes as is international practice, the government has effectively made the toll levy compulsory, which she thinks is illegal.

foreign.desk@thenational.ae