Roads Fund probes K10m tollgate fraud
Roads Fund Administration (RFA) has launched an investigation into alleged fraud of toll fees by some collectors at its two tollgates on the M1 and has since suspended six officers pending disciplinary proceedings.
RFA spokesperson Masauko Mngwaluko said in a statement that there were “some isolated incidents of fraud” involving some of its toll collectors at both Chingeni Toll Plaza in Ntcheu and Kalinyeke Toll Gate in Dedza.
He said the suspects were issuing duplicate receipts to some high value paying vehicles by misclassifying them as low value paying vehicles. He said the suspects were taking home the difference.
“Current indications are that at most K10 million must have been misappropriated,” Mngwaluko said.
A source at Chingeni Toll Plaza said management at the facility uncovered the fraudulent acts involving five of the six suspended officers following an investigation into the allegations.
“The sixth suspect was caught in the act through a CCTV [closed circuit television] camera. The officer in question classified a vehicle rated to pay K4 000 as Class B which pays K1 000 and gave an old K1 000 receipt to the unsuspecting motorist,” said the source.
The source further said one of the Chingeni suspects confided in management that they learnt about the trick from their colleagues at the newly opened Kalinyeke Toll Gate.
Meanwhile, RFA instituted an audit at Kalinyeke and a source said the audit team found malpractices involving at least 11 toll collectors. Three of the Kalinyeke toll collectors are said to have collectively pocketed about K8 million.
The source said when RFA auditors visited Kalinyeke last week, they noted a case where one toll collector processed three vehicles within three minutes, allegedly defrauding the public purse about K9 000.
Mngwaluko could not confirm or deny that 11 toll collectors, at Kalinyeke are implicated and that 15 new toll collectors who attended initial recruitment interviews, are currently being trained.
He said through the toll management system which generates a number of audit reports such as vehicle class differences, RFA investigations detected the fraudulent activities and alerted the system.
He said: “We deployed our internal auditors to investigate the incidents. The auditors have confirmed the fraudulent activities and recognised the concerned transactions, including use of CCTV footages for the noted irregularities.”
Reacting to the development, Centre for Social Accountability and Transparency (Csat) executive director Willy Kambwandila said the revelations show that Malawians’ taxes are not safe and exposes the financial leakages in government ministries, departments and agencies.
He said: “It is good that the revelations also show that government has put in place a system that can track down any elements of fraud and abuse at the toll gates.
“We call upon Malawians to be vigilant to safeguard their hard-earned taxes, but most importantly, we demand an audit to establish the extent of the plunder because we suspect that the figures looted could be more than what we are hearing.”
The two toll gates are the first in the country. The first to be opened, Chingeni Toll Plaza, generated about K500 million between November 2021 and January 2022, according to RFA.
RFA introduced the toll gates as a reform area to diversify sources of financing road maintenance and construction which previously solely relied on levies in the petroleum pump price build-up.
The fund projected to raise between K4 billion and K5 billion per year from toll fees with the amount projected to increase with the passage of time.
Minibuses pay K2 000 per pass while 31-seater buses and vehicles with carrying capacity of between five and 10 tonnes pay K4 000. Light and pickup cars pay K1 000 per pass while vehicles beyond 10 tonnes pay K5 000 and abnormal loads pay K20 000.
