New traffic fine payment system must be efficient

By Editor

Editorial Cartoon

The government, through the Police Force and Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA), recently introduced a new traffic fine payment system whereby traffic offenders will be paying fine through their mobile phones.


The new system, which has been operating on a trial basis in Kinondoni district before being rolled out to the whole country, requires traffic police to issue tickets via special gadgets to traffic offenders  who, in turn, pay the fines via their mobile phone accounts.

According to the modus operandi of the new system, mobile telecommunication operators operate in tandem.

The system saves motorists from harassment at the hands of the police and also helps reduce corruption that was widely practiced by traffic police officers.

The system, which is viewed as one of the proper means of boosting government revenue, also helps to eliminate paper work by traffic police officers.

Much as the system has been commended by motorists for enabling them pay fines at their convenient time, already some concerns have begun to emerge.

Those who have had time to speak to this newspaper this week have complained, saying the payment system is not efficient enough, a problem that increases fines on their side.

They claim that sometimes the system fails to work in terms of allowing transactions to get effected despite sending the money via their mobile phone accounts.

A case study from one of the complainants indicates that last week he paid Sh30,000 as fine for a traffic offence he committed at Kimara in Dar es Salaam after which he received a message acknowledging the transaction.

However, three days later he received another message informing him that the transaction he made had failed.

Failure of the transaction comes with its cost if a notification message about such failure reaches you a week later after the date the traffic police officer issued a notification receipt for the offence.

In this case study the driver complained that he committed the traffic offence on December 20, 2015 and paid the fine the following day (December 21, 2015) after which he immediately received the message acknowledging the payment.

To his surprise, the complainant said, he came to receive a failure notice of the transaction he made  on December 31, 2015 plus a penalty of Sh 7,500.

According to new payment system, if the driver fails to settle the fine within seven days a penalty amounting to Sh7,500 is imposed.

If two weeks elapse without paying the fine the penalty becomes Sh15, 000. The penalty goes up depending on the number of weeks that elapse from the date the motorist was issued with the notification.

The question here is: Why should drivers be penalised for technological shortcomings caused by service providers? 

Much as we congratulate police and TRA for coming up with this new system that reduces harassment to motorists, we call upon the administrators of the system to ensure it does not become a burden to motorists.

If such anomalies are not rectified soon we are pretty sure motorists will raise their voices, wanting either to go back to the old corrupt system or calling for the crafting of a new one.