Do you want to break traffic laws to maximize revenue as a minibus or taxi operator and get away with it—sometimes at the cost of human lives?
No problem. Just pay for the offence’s fine in advance, get a Malawi Government General Receipt (GR) and proceed to violate the paid for traffic rule for the next 24 hours.
The Nation proved the existence of such a system through our own experience as part of the investigation into the issue.
But we also talked to some minibus and taxi operators, popularly known as ‘Sienta’—key players in what passes for public transportation in Malawi—who corroborated our findings.
To test the system, we posed as a Sienta taxi operator and engaged some traffic police officers in Blantyre.
We told them we intended to carry passengers beyond the vehicle’s capacity and thus wanted to pay for the offence in a bid to avoid being penalised on the road.
The officers issued us with a GR for an “exceeding capacity” offence after paying K10 000.
“With this GR, you are safe because you can travel even up to Mzuzu on that particular day, and no one will stop you,” said one of the female traffic police officers we dealt with.
Armed with the GR, we drove to Kameza Roundabout in the commercial city and engaged two touts to find passengers for us to Chingeni in Ntcheu via Zalewa.
Within five minutes, the Sienta was full with seven people on board against the recommended carrying capacity of five. We paid the touts K1 000 and drove off.
On our way, we were stopped by traffic police at GDC, Lunzu and Mdeka in Blantyre, Zalewa in Neno and Senzani in Ntcheu where the vehicle was waved through on exceeding the carrying capacity after producing the GR.
But at three police stops, officers noted another offence of operating a private vehicle as a taxi for which we did not pay in advance in Blantyre and whose fine is K40 000.
But we negotiated and paid K3 000 at each of the three police stops. No GR was issued.
Three minibus and two taxi operators corroborated that they opt for advance GR purchase, particularly for exceeding, to maximize revenue.
Minibus Owners Association of Malawi (Moam) general secretary Coaxley Kamange also acknowledged that some minibus drivers pay for the GR in advance before starting off to operate.
However, he faulted passengers who ask for a minibus fare discount, saying the move forces drivers to exceed carrying capacity to meet their daily targets.
“Passengers themselves are also to blame because they ask drivers to allow four people per chair instead of three because they don’t have enough money. So, to address this problem, these passengers also need to be fined,” said Kamange.
In an interview on Friday, National Police director of traffic Dorothy Kawale expressed shock that some officers allow minibus and taxi operators to pay for offences in advance, thereby enabling them to commit traffic offences
She said her office will institute independent investigations to substantiate our findings and threatened to discipline officers found issuing such documents to motorists.
Kawale said: “We will do something about the issue. When a driver pays a fine, that general GR ends there, and it doesn’t guarantee the driver will continue with the same offence. And it is also strange that they are even charging someone with an offence he is yet to commit. This is totally against the law.”
Road safety expert Chifwede Hara said the exposed traffic police/ drivers arrangement is one of the major contributing factors to the continued alarming cases of road accidents.
He said, for instance, allowing vehicles to carry more passengers than its recommended carrying capacity makes the vehicle not not function properly.
“This is an accident causing situation that puts the lives of passengers in danger. So the element of human error as a cause of accident comes in that way and it means that this is a deliberate human error allowed by traffic authorities,” said Hara.
Commenting on the matter, Malawi Law Society president Patrick Mpaka said there is no legal provision that allows people to pay a fine in advance before committing an offence.
He said police should prioritise people’s safety other than collecting money from motorists.
The traffic police and minibus/taxi operators’ conduct comes at a time, Malawi Police Service (MPS) annual report released recently indicates that 1 001people died in 4 977 road accidents recorded last year.
Out of the people that died, 254 were passengers and 82 were motor vehicle drivers.
A quick analysis of police annual reports further show that in the past five years, the country recorded 40 938 road accidents that claimed 5 830 people’s lives.
This represents an average of about 8 187 road accidents and 1 166 deaths per year.
Minister for Transport and Public Works Jacob Hara is on record saying driver behaviour and poor road infrastructure are the most common causes of accidents in Malawi.
He said this during the 2022 United Nations (UN) High- Level Meeting on Road Safety in New York, United States of America (US).
Corruption among the police in Malawi has been a major risk to road safety.
Drivers Union of Malawi has in the past lamented the growing corrupt practices among traffic police officers who demand cash even when no traffic offence has been committed.
Findings of an Afrobarometer sur vey show that many Malawians have over the years lost trust in Malawi Police Service and that its officers conduct themselves in an unprofessional manner, including demanding bribes to “assist” the citizens.
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