Police bank acount initiative hailed
THE elimination of spot fines at road blocks will bring sanity to the Zambian road system, says the Zambia Road Safety Trust (ZRST).
Police recently announced that a pilot project to make payment of fines at banks had been introduced to enhance transparency.
ZRST communications advisor Mailos Mwale said the move by the Zambia police was welcome and it should be commended by all road users.
He said motorists were in the habit of bribing police officers with small amounts of money to have offences scraped off.
“If this initiative is a success then we expect to have fewer problems on our roads, because would be offenders will know that they will be fined a reasonable fee, so you find that this can actually act as a deterrent, because under the arrangement money is directly paid into an account so there are no negotiations involved,” Mr Mwale said.
He said that the Zambia Police service had failed to manage road traffic and had cost the nation revenue that could have been used for social economic development.
“The trend by the police of pocketing money has really affected even our road system itself because the resources that people channel to personal use could have been used even to develop the road infrastructure in the country,” Mr Mwale said.
He said that the pilot project would definitely bring transparency to the traffic department as there would be a clear channel to be followed in making payment for fines.
Mr Mwale further said that government should consider coming up with initiatives that would continue to promote transparency in the traffic department.