Government To Investigate Number Plate Tender System

THE Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), Mildred Chisi is instigating investigations into alleged irregularities in the award of a tender for the production of new vehicle number plates amid revelations that the price for the plates is inflated.
Motorists, forced to pay US$160 to change to the new number plates, are complaining that they are being fleeced by the government.
Police have also started impounding vehicles with old number plates after the government said those that failed to meet the changeover deadline should park their vehicles until they comply with the directive.
Defiant motorists can be fined and their vehicles impounded.
The interest by CAG in the matter is likely to re-ignite debate on the way the issue of new number plates was handled and expose cases of corruption in the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development, a document obtained by The Standard has revealed.
Chisi confirmed last week that she had received reports alleging some officials in the Ministry of Transport had a hand in ensuring that Southern Region Trading Company, reportedly run by a South African, received the tender for producing the number plates.
“I cannot confirm off-hand what is happening, but I received a letter detailing corruption regarding number plates,” she said, before referring further questions to the Transport ministry.
Efforts to get a comment from either Nicholas Goche, the Transport minister or Partson Mbiriri, the permanent secretary, were in vain last week.
However, Mbiriri wrote an article in the state media defending government’s heavy-handed way of dealing with motorists who missed the deadline but did not respond to complaints that the number plates were overpriced.