NIT decries few vehicles going for new inspection

The inspection unit, which is an arm of the Ministry of Transport and Communication, has a capacity to inspect 30 vehicles per day.

Speaking in an interview with Smart Money recently, the vehicle inspection centre’s manager, Eng Hans Mwaipopo, attributed the low number of inspected vehicles to most drivers snubbing the order to take their vehicles for check-up.

“We are getting very few vehicles for inspection because most drivers do not bring their vehicles for inspection”, said Eng Mwaipopo, adding that the facility, that currently has the capacity to inspect 30 vehicles per day, will be able to inspect 100 vehicles daily when the installation of new lanes that are under construction are completed.

NIT has partnered with the Tanzanian Bureau of Standards (TBS) to facilitate the inspection of all vehicles to ensure their safety and roadworthiness.

“TBS has imposed stiff penalties to all the vehicles that ignore the order to come for mandatory inspection”, warned Eng Mwaipopo.

He called on the vehicle owners to develop a routine of getting their vehicles inspected saying that the inspection was not only meant for safety but was also important in environmental conservation.

The failure by TBS to ensure proper inspection of imported vehicles led to the loss of revenue amounting to 12.16bn/- between 2001 and 2011.

Last year, former legislator John Cheyo advised the government to purchase new vehicle inspection equipment to enable it to inspect all the imported vehicles locally to avoid making losses through inspections that are done at the imported vehicles’ origin.

According available to statistics from TBS, a total of 235 imported vehicles were inspected in the 2002/03 financial year. The figures given for subsequent years are: 2003/04 (1, 857), 2004/05 (13, 576), 2005/06 (14, 411), 2006/07 (14, 467), 2007/08 (14, 485) and 2008/09 (21,175) respectively.