Vehicle licensing fees have been raised significantly in a statutory instrument gazetted yesterday by Transport and Infrastructure Development Minister Felix Mhona with the four-months licence fee for a light motor vehicle under 1 500kg mass doubling from US$20 to US$40.
SI67 of 2024, Vehicle Registration and Licensing (Amendment) Regulations, 2024 (No.26), covers the full range of registration and licensing fees for vehicles, including initial registration in Zimbabwe, change of ownership, replacement number plates, changes in registration details, duplicate registration book and the like, plus the licensing fees. All vehicles have to be licensed at all times, even if this is an off-road licence, and the regulations gazetted on Friday give tables for each range of vehicle masses for four months, six months, eight months, 10 months and one year.
While all fees but the licence fees are normally paid to the Central Vehicle Registry or other Government authorities, the licence fees form one of the two main streams of revenue, the other being toll fees, for Zinara and so are largely applied to funding road administration for road maintenance, road rehabilitation and new roads and bridges. Toll fees have not only been dominating the Zinara revenue flows, but there is the additional need for funding roadworks in all local authorities, and not just the main highway grid where the toll gates lie.
The revenue from licence fees is the prime source of this local authority road funding, as it was when local authorities collected the money themselves under a range of licensing regimes before this was centralised at Zinara under a set of national licensing fees. Zinara insists that all road authorities, basically the central Government and the urban and rural district councils, account for the previous transfer of funds before they can get their next tranche from Zinara. Yesterday in a statement Zinara hailed the new fees saying the higher licence fees would allow more meaningful disbursements to road authorities for road infrastructure maintenance.
In a statement, Zinara said: “The review of motor vehicle licenses is a significant move towards right-pricing license fees given the significant road maintenance backlog currently burdening road authorities.
“This review will go a long way to improve the budget allocations for road authorities to do planned road works. We are confident that this development is game changer that is going to see a rapid acceleration of road projects across the country.
While the Statutory instrument lists the fees in US dollars, it makes it clear that payment can be in ZiG’s using the exchange rate on the date of payment.
