When I saw The Herald headline Zinara deadline scrapped this morning, I assumed it meant they’d realised that they wouldn’t be able to process new vehicle license discs even within the extended deadline period, and had decided to give everyone even more time.

This made sense given the number of frustrated, queuing motorists who were reporting on their experiences – including on our blog here and here.

Silly, silly me.

Rather, Zinara has gone back on the deadline extension. On 30 May, realising at last that long queues and a shortfall of around 580,000 vehicles to license they announced the deadline would be extended to 30 June. Unsurprisingly, the queues began to dwindle as people had more time to get their vehicles licensed, and therefore could plan accordingly.

In a move that now punishes motorists for believing them, Zinara has retreated on the deadline extension, back dating the deadline to 31 May again, and has instructed Zimbabwe Republic Police to fine motorists found driving with an expired vehicle license disc.

Politics 101 teaches that public confidence in state institutions is fundamental to good governance. Punishing the public for believing you is a surefire way to breed an angry public.

This entry was posted on June 6th, 2012 at 8:07 am by Amanda Atwood and is filed under Governance, Reflections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.