SCORES of prospective drivers in Marondera and other stations countrywide are stranded after the Vehicle Inspectorate Department (VID) ran out stationery to produce the licences.
The crisis has reportedly gone for more than a month with a number of depots having stopped conducting provisional driver’s licence tests due to non-availability of the yellow paper.
VID director Joseph Pedzapasi yesterday confirmed the stationery challenges, but said the issue would be rectified next week.
“It is true that we have that challenge. Our printers, Printflow, did not deliver the stationery due to a payment issue. We have since paid them and the problem will be rectified this week and the stationery will be made available,” Pedzapasi said.
A visit by NewsDay to the VID Marondera depot revealed that there was no stationery for provisional driver’s licences, with driving school instructors advising their clients to travel to Harare for the service.
One of Marondera’s leading driving school owners, who refused to be named, said VID had not been issuing the provisional driver’s licences for more than a month.
“It is a crisis, there is no stationery, that yellow paper is not there. It is now one-and-a-half months without them issuing provisional driver’s licences. We are urging our students to go and book in Harare where there is a computerised system. However, most are yet to be acquainted with the new technology, which is a challenge,” the official said.
NewsDay gathered that other VID depots that have run out of paper included Mutare, Rusape and Chinhoyi and were not conducting provisional driver’s licence examinations.
The VID has adopted a computerised system for provisional driver’s licence tests in some of its depots to curb corruption.
Some of the depots are, however, still conducting the examinations manually.-newsday