By Isaac Salima:
The country’s struggle to take over management of the Malawi Transport Information System (Maltis) continues, as South Africa-based firms that operate the system are yet to hand it over to the government— about seven years on.
Maltis servers handle all essential services of the Department of Road Traffic and Safety Services (DRTSS) and have been run by South Africa-based companies such as Motor Vehicle Spares and Accessories (Movesa) and Fischer Consulting.
Government’s contract with the firms expired in 2017 and the firms were reportedly told to hand over management of the servers to the government.
Attorney General (AG) Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda Wednesday said they were taking the matter to court after being fed up with the companies’ promises.
“We engaged their lawyer some months ago, who pleaded with us not to take the matter to court. I contacted him some two weeks ago and they have not complied with what we agreed and we are proceeding with court action,” Chakaka Nyirenda said.
The firms’ lawyer George Liwimbi Wednesday said they were waiting for the government to respond on issues they wrote to the office of the AG.
“We are waiting for them to respond to what we wrote them. They may proceed with their court action,” Liwimbi said, adding that he could not divulge the contents of the letter as he had not been instructed to do so by his client.
In a previous interview, the AG lamented that the country was losing revenue as there were chances that some vehicles were being dubiously registered and evading import duty.
“In this case, we have a situation where people buy vehicles in South Africa, register them there while they bear Malawian registration names and come here as if duty has already been paid. The other thing is that there is nothing we can do with the system, in terms of improving it,” Chakaka Nyirenda said.
He was quick to say it had been a learning point on how to award such contracts.
Last year, the Parliamentary Committee on Transport and Public Infrastructure directed DRTSS to hand over the system to the Malawi Government.
“We, therefore, recommend that government, through the DRTSS, to ensure that Movesa and Fischer Consultants stop administering the Maltis because that is the responsibility of the directorate. We also recommend that Movesa and Fischer Consultants should stop directly engaging operators of vehicle inspection stations on Maltis issues because the operators are agents of government through the DRTSS,” the committee chairperson Enock Phale told Parliament when presenting the report.
Wednesday, Phale said that he stood by the committee’s recommendations that the government should take over management of Maltis.
“You may wish to know that I had further followed up with the Attorney General on his earlier commitment that he would initiate court proceedings if the supplier still clings to Maltis. He promised that he still has plans to act as earlier committed. We are still waiting to see some progress, which is our expectation.
“The committee is still trusting that the AG is going to do as committed and recommended by Parliament and, in the event that there are still further delays to act on Parliament’s recommendation, it will be necessary that the AG appears before the committee for an explanation,” Phale said.
In 2022, Maltis servers crashed in the country and DRTSS was forced to fly in developers to work on the system.
DRTSS was forced to suspend its operations due to the problem.
