By OLIVER SAMBOKO
Government has proposed the introduction of anniversary licensing aimed at addressing challenges in the issuance of road tax and fitness certificates.
Acting Transport and Logistics Minister, Charles Milupi, said in Parliament yesterday that the Road Traffic Amendment bill no 8 of 2022 presented to Parliament on July 7, 2022, will ensure that each vehicle to have its own annual cycle of licencing to run from the date of first registration.
He said the measure will effectively address the challenges of long queues experienced at Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) service centres and system overloads.
Mr Milupi urged members of Parliament to support the amendment bill and also called on the members of the public to utilise the government service bus to procure RTSA services online in order to decongest the stations.
He said with regard to quarterly issuance of fitness and motor vehicle Road tax, RTSA has been issuing certificates on time.
He said the delay in issuance of road tax and fitness certificates in some cases is as a result of network interruptions on the online system, which is due to non-compliance with the requirements for the Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) to run effectively.
Mr Milupi also clarified that it’s not accurate that RTSA is failing to issue road tax and vehicle fitness certificates to the public as it is being alleged by some people.
He said the recent slowdown in the issuance of road tax and fitness certificates was due to a drop in the performance of the Electronic Zambian Transport lnformation System (E-ZamTlS). Mr Milupi said this is a common occurrence at the end of every quarter as the Agency experiences a peak in the number of transactions processed on the system, particularly transactions related to road tax as most clients prefer to purchase road tax at the end of the quarter.
He also said RTSA has taken immediate measures by outsourcing some of its services to agents such as local authorities, ZamPost, the Zambia State lnsurance Cooperation (ZISC) and the introduction of RTSA online transactions on the government Service Bus.
