Cancel IMIS deal, demands CDP

“Seventeen years for a concession agreement such as the Road Safety Management with IMIS is too long. RTSA alone is capable of handling such a project with support from Government, they don’t need a foreign firm to do it. Those will just externalise the funds and Zambians will not benefit.’’

THE 17 year Road Safety Management concession agreement with Austrian firm, Intelligence Mobility Solutions (IMIS) should be cancelled because it is not benefiting Zambians, Citizens Democratic Party (CDP) president Robert Mwanza has demanded.

Mr Mwanza said the Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) was capable of providing advanced road traffic management solutions and services without help from any foreign firm.

He said the contract to provide intelligent transportation systems in the fields of cross-border tolling enforcement, traffic management, smart urban mobility, traffic safety and security, and connected vehicles could be handled by RTSA alone with the support of Government.

Mr Mwanza said then could such a programme benefit Zambians directly as much as it ensures safety on Zambian roads.

He said the current agreement only gave room for externalisation of money that would be made from the programme.

Mr Mwanza also said the 17-year concession period was too long and that the infrastructure which would be constructed would be in a bad state by the time it was handled over to government.

“Seventeen years for a concession agreement such as the Road Safety Management with IMIS is too long. RTSA alone is capable of handling such a project with support from Government, they don’t need a foreign firm to do it.

Those will just externalise the funds and Zambians will not benefit.

“RTSA cannot fail to buy speed cameras and the monitoring vehicles that the IMIS agreement is coming with,” he said.

Mr Mwanza advised Government to ensure agreements made with foreign firms benefited Zambians.

In September 2017, Government announced that KapschTraffic Com’s joint venture with Zambia’s Lamise Trading Limited had been awarded a nation-wide concession contract for the design, installation and operation of systems and solutions for traffic surveillance, vehicle speed enforcement, vehicle inspection and vehicle registration. So far, only speed cameras have placed on selected roads in Lusaka and a few monitoring vehicles procured.