Mon, 16 Oct 2017 11:58:54 +0000
By Nation Reporter
A Zambian traffic engineer has strongly urged Government to consider re-tendering the 17 year traffic management contract awarded to Lamise- a Chinese company, which is working in collaboration with an Austrian company.
The Government, he said, should buy both the hardware, Software and training component to be utilized by the Road Development Agency rather than giving the highly profitable and lucrative contract in private hands on the basis of 50-50 sharing.
“This is never done and Zambia should not be the first place where it should be done,” a traffic engineering expert has said.
“That period is too long and the money to be lost by the Government and Zambian people too colossal,” Cleaver Mwewa an American traffic engineer has warned. He said traffic management was a function of computer software which any qualified Zambian computer or traffic management engineer could master.
Many companies, he said, would offer software, hardware and training without demanding to share in the proceeds of tolling.
The fact that the Government was not spending any money on the system should send a warning sign, “Traffic management anywhere in the world is lucrative business that is why it is left to Government of local authorities which require huge amounts of money for public service.” He said.
“The Government can buy both the hardware and software at a fraction of the amount the miss in income through the 50-50 sharing” he said.
“If necessary the Government can recruit a fully qualified expatriate traffic management engineer, conversant with the software being offered by the Austrian company whose salary will not be more than US$50,000 to give initial training to Zambian engineers.”
There was need, he said, for Government to contract traffic management to a foreign company, even if there was no immediate cost attached to it, “Look at the money that the RDA is making every day why should this be shared with a foreign company?”” he asked.
Road traffic management, he said, was the easiest way that Government could raise much needed revenue for the many services it offered including road maintenance. “The Government should refloat the tender for applicants to provide hardware and software including training. This 17 year 50-50 percent sharing I will greatly disadvantage the Zambian Government. “
Mr. Mwewa added that road tolling should never be reposed in private hands because the huge volumes of cash it generated and the propensity for mischief.
“The Government must revisit this project because there are many Zambians who are eminently qualified to operate and manage sophisticated traffic management systems as per portfolio that has been awarded to the Lamise/Austrian Company. There is nothing complicated in that contract that the Zambian Government cannot afford to buy the hardware and software, “he said.
