Some motorists in Ndola City in Copperbelt province have appealed to the Road Traffic and Safety Agency (RTSA) to consider introducing a more user friendly system of issuance of drivers licenses.
ZANIS Ndola reports that some motorists complained that acquiring of drivers licenses in Ndola was marred with inefficiency and irregularities.
A concerned driver Simon Zulu who applied for a license alleged that some officers at the agency were biased when dealing with clients.
He explained that some clients were given priority and attended to swiftly while others were made to wait in queues for long periods of time.
“When some of us go there, we wait in queues, while others just go straight to the counters and are attended to, when we complain they make us fail the tests,” he complained.
Another applicant Andrew Mubanga complained that even successful applicants were being inconvenienced by the agency as they took their time to issue the license.
“Imagine you are in the queue before lunch time then at 13:00 hours you are told they are closing for lunch, you have to come back later. Why can’t they work shifts? This is why we don’t develop as a country,” he said.
Another applicant Maybin Chewe advised that RTSA Ndola should speed up the process of renewing old licenses.
“My appeal is to RTSA Ndola to speed up the process of renewing one’s old license. It should not take as long as a first time applicant,” he said.
The residents have since appealed to the agency to be more efficient in its operations considering that it offers very cardinal services to the general public.
Efforts to get RTSA Head of Public Relations Fred Mubanga to comment on the matter failed by broadcast time as he was unreachable on his mobile phone.
The whole Zambian system needs a restart.
This is one department that has failed or neglected to improve despite been run by a private company. Even ZRA has tried to improve its service delivery not this RTSA. The Ndola complaint may even be worse in Kitwe. As a nobody renewing a license for instance, you have to endure very long queues in a very small room standing with no air cons. and a lot of network failures on their system. This gives room to so called agents who are well known by RTSA officers. We know they are well known because no matter the length of queues,their papers are attended to. To make matters worse, that machine which the minister showed off to be printing licenses,hardly ever works! RTSA needs to up their service delivery and invest that money they collect daily into serving the people professionally.
The system is ok, it’s the implementors who are not ok. The overcrowding is artificial so as to force applicants to pay ba “Pungwa ” money which is later shared with RATSA officers. At Kitwe there’s this man with a hunch back who’s a permanent feature at RATSA. At first you will think that he’s an applicant or an official there, but no he’s the most “effective ” agent. The best way is to contact renewals electronically for appointments. The days for initial application must be separated from renewals. It can work but it can’t because the RATSA officers won’t have that extra cash which has be come part of their income.