Verify before buying vehicles, Malawians advised
Malawians have been advised to always make prior verification with the Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA), Directorate of Road Traffic and Safety Services (DRTSS) and Malawi Police Service (MPS) before purchasing a motor vehicle even if the vehicle is bearing a local registration number because sometimes the vehicle may have been stolen or smuggled into the country.
The Secretary to the Treasury, Ben Botolo, said this recently when Capital Hill witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to interface operations systems involving MRA, DRTSS and the Police.
The signing took place at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning & Development headquarters and it was presided over by the Secretary to the Treasury himself.
MRA Commissioner General, Tom Gray Malata, Director of Road Traffic and Safety Services, MFergus Gondwe and the Malawi Police Service Deputy Inspector General (Administration), John Nyondo, led their respective teams to formalise the tripartite working relationship.
The MoU facilitates the interface of Malawi Traffic Information System (MalTIS), ASYCUDA World, Msonkho Online and Interpol 24/7, further cementing an already existing working relationship among the three public institutions.
In his address, the Secretary to the Treasury said the MoU will heighten improved service to the public while at the same time ensuring that there is order in the importation and registration of vehicles in Malawi.
“Motor vehicle smuggling has resulted in huge loss of revenue. We all know there is huge demand for social services and development projects from the people of Malawi such as bridges, roads, schools, hospitals and others. All these need financial resources.
“Through this MoU, the three institutions will enhance their cooperation and share data [real time] which will be used to detect such fraudulent acts and easily recover revenue from smuggled motor vehicles with dubious registration number plates,” observed the ST.
He emphasised that the working relationship between the MRA, DRTSS and the Police had already started bearing positive results with a recent joint operation leading to seizure of 47 smuggled motor vehicles.
“This operation enabled the three organisations to recover over K500 million. Surely without good working relationship among the three institutions this revenue would have been lost,” he observed.
In addition to protecting loss of revenue, the MoU will enable the three institutions to provide quality service to businesses and the general public thereby encouraging lawful clearance and registration of motor vehicles.
The Secretary to Treasury, therefore, advised Malawians wishing to purchase motor vehicles on the open market to always verify with MRA, DRTSS and the Police if indeed the motor vehicle was legally registered.
In a media interview, the Commissioner General said the Authority is very committed to sustaining the working relationship with DRTSS and the Police as formalised by the MoU sentiments.
The Deputy Inspector General of Police said the MoU will also ease their work when issuing Police Clearance Certificates, sentiments which the Director of Road Traffic and Safety Services echoed.
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Don’t cheat us! Bottomline is, you are not working together when it comes to customer service! To my opinion you are a poor functional syndicate, which deliberately delays us when we registering vehicles for the sake of corruption and selfishness! Not more and not less! Why do we have to run still to all of your three offices when all of you have IT systems in place? Answer: You fear to loose out to get a piece of the corrupt cake. In the ranking you are soon after ESCOM and I really wonder how much you cost our ailing economy… Read more »
why should we pay taxes and you get tax fee benefits,,, achina Zameer and his team,,,,,
Just to register a car you will stand on the que for 3 To 4 days and these will need a month plus extra cash to dish
Opusa eti… you mean as the buyer, we should be suffering because of the katangale in all those departments? Its clear there is a chain of events that allows for this to happen, with most of the directors involved. You should sort out your people, not penalise the consumer! Lets start with checking the status of the 50 Nissan Navaras imported from Ireland by one particular party before we start poking the hard working public consumer.
I suggest this agreement becomes redundant to me, as a consumer or vehicle purchaser, the minute it is signed because in the end I will be stuck with corruption payments to the three agencies just to get the said verification. I could end up paying more than K500000 – they think I am rich if I want to buy a middle tier car or SUV – under the table.
And, you would think these bosses would put their departments in order first, to establish public trust in the first place. Aaaah.
Then what do you think should happen?
Idiots like you should be slapped
The event happened two weeks ago….No news even though