Maltis handover delays frustrate DRTSS

Government’s failure to take control of the Malawi Traffic Information System (Maltis) is frustrating services at the Directorate of Road Traffic and Safety Services (DRTSS), including revenue collection.

This is according to the 2024 Annual Economic Report released last Friday as part of the budget documents, and the situation has been attributed to the delay by Motor Vehicle Spares and Accessories (Movesa) to hand over the system to the government.

Government and Movesa, a consultant have for seven years now been in a standoff over the handover of the system to government due to a contractual debacle. This means Movesa still controls the system.

Apart from affecting revenue collection, the debacle has for the past two years disadvantaged users on licence cards which DRTSS started issuing last week.

Reads part of the report: “The consultant [Movesa] remains uncooperative despite a physical meeting that was held in RSA [Republic of South Africa] and an agreement to handover the system by June 30 2022.”

The initial handover was slated for 2017, but there have been several shifts before the contractual debacle came to the fore in the aftermath of Tonse Alliance assuming power in 2020.

According to the report, this has resulted in a non-linkage of traffic Maltis and core Maltis which has affected revenue collection as there is a lot of revenue being unrealised through unpaid tickets.

“Non-linkage of the weighbridge system to the core Maltis has provided management with monitoring challenges that inadvertently have an impact on the revenue collected per station,” further reads the report.

According to the report, as at the end of November 2023, DRTSS made a revenue loss of K8.3 billion. The directorate’s target was K17.7 billion, but only generated K9.4 billion.

This represents a 52.95 percent performance against the revenue target.

By press time Movesa had not responded to a questionnaire we sent last week.

However, Minister of Transport and Public Works Jacob Hara in a WhatsApp response said the matter is handled by the Office of the Attorney General while Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs spokesperson Frank Namangale on Tuesday asked for more time before responding.

When we followed up with him on Thursday and Friday, he indicated that he would furnish us with the response, a which he had not done by press time yesterday.

But Centre for Social Accountability and Transparency executive director Willy Kambwandira described the disagreement between government and Movesa as a threat to national security.

He said: “It is clear that the government is powerless on this matter, and we cannot continue as a country to have a government contract where a contractor controls everything.

“What else is the contractor doing with the system? It is clear that there is no one checking him. The development only confirms that proper contractual procedures were not followed, and Malawians are paying for the sins.”

In a separate interview, Human Rights Defenders Coalition chairperson Gift Trapence said failure to resolve the standoff by the government is a disservice to Malawians.

“These issues have taken a long time to be resolved and Malawians want to be accessing the various services. This is a national crisis that needs the President’s intervention,” he said.

Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives executive director Sylvester Namiwa in a separate interview, said: “Is it not strange that we have a crisis in almost all sectors of the country?

“It is even heartbreaking that those entrusted with the responsibility to solve the same either look away due to incompetence or simply because they are benefiting from the plight of the citizenry.”

Namiwa said Malawians should not be hoodwinked into believing that it is a sheer coincidence to have a crisis on issues such as failure to produce licence cards, passports and national identity cards.

He said this should compel Malawians to open their eyes to see what the country’s leaders are showing and hear what they are not saying in public.

“At every given opportunity, they put their interests first at the expense of the masses,” he said.

Namiwa said if problems at the road traffic directorate persist, his organisation will mobilise Malawians to demonstrate.