Harare (New Ziana)-Management and Staff of the Central Vehicle Registry (CVR) are being reshuffled as the government moves to weed out corruption in the department, Transport and Infrastructure Development Minister Felix Mhona said on Monday.
Mhona told journalists that as part of wider changes, the CVR now had a new registrar, Saston Muzenda, who takes over from George Makoni, who was re-assigned to the Ministry.
“Because of corrupt tendencies some motorists were being disadvantaged whereby you go to CVR and you are told that number plates are not ready.
” We are dealing decisively with that. As I speak today, we have started reshuffling. We have actually managed to transfer some officials from the CVR. We have Muzenda as the new registrar. Previously we had Mr Makoni who has been there for years. And we are saying there is no way one can be in a department for 30 or 40 years without empowering others. That’s why we have got the registrar to take charge of some of the malpractices that have been practiced at CVR,” he said.
Mhona said junior staff were not spared from the changes.
“Similarly you are going to see junior staff who were actually championing these corruption tendencies that we are talking about being reshuffled or fired. We are saying in the Second Republic, it’s very clear that President Mnangagwa is saying no to corruption, zero tolerance to corruption and this is exactly what we are moving along with, as a Ministry.”
He added :”The talk these days was to pay US$50 for the set of number plates. Why should you pay additional money to what was demanded by the Ministry? We are saying no more corrupt tendencies in terms of paying bribes.”
Mhona said those found guilty of corruption would face the chop.
“If we then unearth some of those corrupt officials, we will still come back to the people of Zimbabwe to say out of five or ten, we strongly believe beyond reasonable doubt that this person is corrupt and we fire them,” he said.
He said in a bid to weed out corruption linked to number plates at CVR, the service was decentralized to all provinces.
“We now have agencies and that will also ease pressure we are witnessing at CVR. We assure the people of Zimbabwe that there is no need to come to Harare, you can actually go to provinces,” he said.
The CVR, the Zimbabwe National Road Administration (ZINARA), the Vehicle Inspection Department (VID), and the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) have been identified among the most corrupt state departments, and with some of the officers allegedly pocketing at least US$200 a day from illicit deals.
New Ziana
