Road Traffic in blame game

The Directorate of Road Traffic and Safety Services (DRTSS) has blamed the chaos surrounding rollout of its new traffic information system on sabotage by ‘stakeholders’.

Many people who have visited the department’s offices in the wake of the rollout have claimed the new operating platform is failing to read information from the previous software, resulting in service delivery delays.

Government had set May 11 2015 as the official rollout date for the new system, but since then, the process has taken a snail’s pace with long queues of frustrated customers enveloping the department’s premises, especially in Blantyre and Lilongwe.

However, DRTSS yesterday dismissed reports of delays as resulting from system failure, saying “internal stakeholders are conniving with middlemen… to throw spanners in the whole process.”

DRTSS spokesperson Chisomo Chibwana said in a statement the intermediaries can no longer transact business on behalf of third parties because the system is automated; hence, many service seekers have been duped.

However, the directorate acknowledged the mounting concerns from the public about service delivery delays as a result of the newly introduced system upgrade.

A visit to DRTSS Blantyre offices yesterday showed that the new system was functioning normally while several middlemen were still seen loitering around the premises trying to dupe service seekers.

“The delays in the process are not as a result of system failure as people are speculating. Currently, everybody is supposed to have his or her fingerprints taken as well as particulars to enter into the system. But within few months everything will be normal,” said Chibwana.

Two women who refused to be named told The Nation they were duped to buy a registration form at K5 000, which DRTSS gives out freely for applicants to be registered into the system.