Dealing with cancerous abuse of Govt vehicles
Published On June 14, 2022 » 4516 Views» By Times Reporter » Features
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•Abuse of Government vehicles is rife.

By MARTIN NYIERNDA –
IN 2018, Government spent K2 billion on maintaining and servicing its fleet of vehicles.
This scenario outlines the depth of abuse of Government resources which one of the factors that led to the emergence of the United Party for National Development (UPND) Alliance, which formed Government last year.
The unaccountable monies were spent without care as millions of Zambians succumbed to squalor, disease and human degradation.
Former Works and Supply minister Felix Mutati, who was in the previous Patriotic Front (PF) administration, owned up in March, 2018, that there was something rather unusual to use up K2 billion on Government vehicles, thanks to a culturally poor fleet management system.
“Most of you may not be aware that it is costing us, as government, K2 billion annually as audited by the Ministry of Finance in maintenance and other related costs of government transport. Surely, something is wrong with that,” Mutati said.
Mr Mutati, who is now serving in the newly created Technology and Science portfolio, said, “So we need a policy; who must have a vehicle? As it is, everybody is just running around, etcetera, etcetera. Are we monitoring movement, fuel consumption, and repairs, insurance? Are we holding on to vehicles that are beyond their life time? So we need a policy. We need a fleet management system in order for us to control that,” he said.
Government’s agenda to improve the country suffers because some officers on being paid tax-payers money still use public vehicles to abuse public vehicles by ferrying sand and bricks to build their personal houses and run personal errands.
As a result, it is not unusual that every other day, public officers ply the roads in GRZ vehicles as they run personal erands of taking bags of fertilizer and seed to their farms, deliver construction materials to build their houses, and so on.
Others misuse public vehicles and are not mindful that their actions paralyze service delivery at their stations because there is no transport available.
“It is true that there are many public workers using Government transport for their personal gain at the expense of serving the interest of the general populace. We have seen some senior officers using Government trucks to ferry building materials to their plots where they are building structures,” says Tennyson Chimbala, a Ndola resident and retiree, who worked in the public service for over 18 years.
Mr Chimbala said there were still some officers who take advantage of their official activities to carry passengers hiking on the highways for a fee, which compromises Government productivity in many aspects.
As much as this scenario speaks about the dynamics of public resource abuse, it points to one of the reasons why Zambia still remains undeveloped despite its vast natural resources.
Since coming into office, President Hakainde Hichilema has been determined to change the socio-economic complexion of the country.
President Hichilema has placed a premium on curbing the abuse of Government resources perpetuated by erring public workers, in whatever form.
He says his administration abhors corruption.
Abuse of public vehicles resources, such as Government vehicles, translates to corruption, which results in the country incurring excessive public expenditure.
To keep the wheels of the economy running, the President says: “Our administration commits itself to immediately stop excessive public expenditure as a way of halting further accumulation of debt”.
This brings in very issue of the poor management of Government vehicles which has over so many years contributed to the treasury losing money.
Cases of some misguided elements in the civil service have continued to fuel the vice as they have no regard to following existing guidelines on use of Government property.
This defeats the well intended initiatives to of the Government to address the abuse of Government property, like the vehicles, which are acquired at great cost to the tax payers.
In the previous administration, the Transport Policy, which was well-intended to help avoid mismanagement of public resources, sadly failed to yield any positive results because it was not followed to the later.
The situation deteriorated to a level where most civil servants were involved in abusing public resources and acquired property by virtue of their positions in the public service.
Fortunately enough, the New Dawn Government has already identified flaws in the poor management of Government vehicles, with Transport and Logistics Minister Frank Tayali recently putting the controller of Government transport on the spot for failing to curbing the rampant misuse of Government vehicles.
The minister said he was tipped by a whistle blower in Mpika where a video was taken of a Government vehicle from the Ministry of Health was being used to ferry passengers who were made to pay.
Mr Tayali, who was shocked at the activities of the notorious driver from the Ministry of Health, who was driving a white Land Cruiser, wondered why such kind of negligence was being tolerated.
He advised the controller not to be susceptible or liable to such negligence.
To the minister, this conduct was unacceptable, considering that the system could not track who was using Government transport.
On his recent tour of offices of the Government Transport Control Unit as part of his familiarisation programme of departments and units under his ministry, Mr Tayali raised pertinent issues relating to misuse of Government vehicles, which he said has continued to cost Government colossal sums of money in maintenance and parts replacement of vehicles.
Mr Tayali equally wondered why there have been so many accidents happening when the unit is there to monitor the use of vehicles, more so by public officers on private errands.
It may be difficult to pinpoint the culprits involved, but no effort should be spared to penalize those found wanting if sectors such as education, health, social welfare, among others, are to improve.
Therefore, there is need for the New Dawn Government, through the line ministries, to implement the Transport Policy that will help to stop the mismanagement of public vehicles.
The implementation of the revised fleet management system must also be done.
This is because even after the Committee on Communications, Transport, Works and Supply report was adopted well over four years, some greedy public workers have continued to misuse public vehicles as ordinary Zambians continued experiencing challenges to access affordable and quality service delivery.

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