By NAMUTENGA SAKAPILA
Toll gates are a sustainable means to mobilize funds to maintain roads and a cash cow for the economy of Zambia.
Looking at the shoots taken from management information System giving a summary of Toll collections at two toll plazas at Kafulafuta and Manyumbi toll gates amounting to 43,779 in a period of three days.
This goes to show that toll plazas are a sure money making cow that can be able to pay off loans and maintain the Zambian roads to immaculate conditions.
National Road Fund Agency (NRFA) IT Manager Clement Masiye said NRFA have invested in a high tech control room that accurately tabulates information coming in from toll gates real time.
Mr Masiye said the system that would be finished in the last quarter of 2018 allows for visual surveillance of toll operations and general activities at six Toll Stations in real time.
He said NRFA seeks to protect the interests of its stakeholders by ensuring the integrity of the toll collection systems and that tolls are accounted for, hence the initiation of a Control Centre at the Head Quarters in Lusaka.
He said the cameras placed both in and outside the booth allow the entire transaction between the motorist and the toll collector to be captured, from the instant the motorist approaches the booth, pays a toll and collects a receipt.
With such high tech data retrieving system, the question which remains is has government through the road fund agency derived a way in which to allocate such sums of money being collected by these toll plazas?
