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THE Road Development Agency (RDA) says about 300 jobs will be created for the Agency when the axle load control units and road tolling programme is fully rolled out in the country.
RDA road tolling senior manager Wesley Kaluba said the programme would create a lot of employment opportunities directly through RDA and concessions by road operators.
He said this in an interview in Livingstone yesterday on the sidelines of the RDA training and sensitisation workshop for Zambia Police officers on road tolling.
The training has attracted 60 police officers who would be deployed across the country in all toll plazas as well as axle loads and weighbridges.
“The benefits of road tolling to Zambians are immense as we will have improved roads through maintenance and repair.
“We also envisage that when the road tolling programme is fully rolled out, about 300 people will be employed directly to RDA,” Mr Kaluba said.
He said RDA had already rolled out the programme in phase one where the Agency was collecting revenue from heavy vehicles at weighbridges since November last year.
“This year, we are ready to kick-start phase two where we are targeting to collect revenue from smaller vehicles too.
“In phase two, we will construct toll plazas in identified sections across the network and hopefully we should be able to deploy toll plazas elsewhere by the end of the first quarter in March this year,” Mr Kaluba said.
He said the commissioning of full top plazas was expected to be done by the end of September this year.
Mr Kaluba said RDA had already developed a standards operating procedure on how to account for money collected from the programme.
“We are trying to create synergies between security wings and other stakeholders in the implementation of the Toll Act No. 14 of 2011,” he said.
On Wednesday, Transport, Works, Supply and Communication Minister Yamfwa Mukanga called for high levels of patriotism and professionalism among police officers in ensuring that all revenue collected from axle load control units and road tolling was accounted for.
Mr Mukanga noted that operating toll gates by collecting revenues came with a great sense of financial risks such as embezzlement of funds, theft, corruption and collusion, among others.
