3 March 2008
Maputo — The Mozambican National Traffic Institute (INAV) has promised to introduce, during the first half of this year, compulsory insurance to all vehicles, reports Monday's issue of the Maputo daily "Noticias".
The measure is to bring Mozambique into line with the rest of the members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and ebsure that compensation can be paid to the victims of traffic accidents.
A law on compulsory third party insurance was passed by the Assembly of the Republic, the Mozambican parliament, in 2003. Scandalously it has yet to be implemented, and the excuse given by INAV is that so far the proposed Centres for Regular Vehicle Inspections have not been set up.
The excuse is wafer thin, since insurance companies do not demand that vehicles be submitted to regular inspections before issuing an insurance police. Indeed, insurance is already compulsory for passenger vehicles.
The delay in making third party insurance compulsory for all vehicles merely encourages hit-and-run driving. It also means that compensation is often not paid to the victims of accidents involving an uninsured vehicle.
Henrique Makanica, a Vehicles Inspector at INAV, said that most vehicles in Mozambique are not insured, and all should be as from this year, regardless of the use the owner makes of them.
He added that another situation that led to the implementation of this law is the growing number of vehicles in the country. By December 2007 there were 254,079 vehicles registered in the country, 91,768 of them in Maputo province, and 81,769 in Maputo city.
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