Harare — In October last year, a public relations consultant Agnes Chimhau (33) of Mabvuku made a third attempt at obtaining a driver's licence.

She had already obtained the required provisional licence at the Vehicle Inspection Department six months earlier, and on two occasions underwent pre-testing at CMED Private Limited.

Chimhau failed the test resulting in her having to start all over again.

"This meant I had to go back to square-one, literally, as I had to start the process all over again.

"I had to part with a lot of money to complete the course, and the inevitable kickbacks to authorities along the chain," she complained.

Her task was not made easy with "pre-testing", conducted at the CMED, which she, as many other learners and stakeholders felt was an unnecessary hurdle.

And on Monday, Chimhau confidently joined many other prospective drivers at VID hoping to come out with a clean pass.

Following the announcement of the scrapping of the pre-testing of learner drivers by the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Infrastructural Development recently, stakeholders in the training and development of drivers have heaved a sigh of relief saying the exercise was an "ill wind that did nobody any good".

The pre-testing, which was being overseen by the CME D since September 2007, largely failed to make the difference it was mandated to do in curbing road carnage, while it heaped more corruption in the system as well as encumbering would-be drivers with bureaucratic procedure and costs.

It involved a prospective driver, on the recommendation of a driving school, undergoing a test at the CMED before proceeding for final examination at VID.

Learners who failed the pre-test were required to go back to their driving school and start the process all over again.

Pre-testing came under fire as would be drivers and other stakeholders felt that it was a duplication of the VID's role and was strenuous.

Harare-based DSM Driving School CEO, Vurombo Chibaya, said when the idea was introduced, no "fair-minded" person was able to refuse it as it was for "noble reasons".

"When pre-testing was introduced it sought to stop corruption, improve on our driver training and to curb the increased number of accidents, which were being blamed on poor driving.

"But afterwards we saw that the mechanism was not able to cut corruption as promised.

"The burden of having someone do the same process twice discouraged people from going through the normal procedure and hence it created more room for corruption," he said.

The CMED lengthened the chain and it was negatively affecting aspiring drivers, as it also burdened them with costs that were already very high.

Before pre-testing was scrapped it cost approximately $300 for someone to obtain a driver's licence, which included fees for about 30 lessons, registration and processing of papers at CMED as well as registration and processing at VID.

Chibaya said they were surprised that assessors at CMED were taken from the driving schools and some persons whom the schools had "discarded".

"It defeated the whole purpose of trying to stop corruption and improving the quality of learners because there were some people whom we had discarded for various reasons such as corruption and incompetence.

"We were left with no trust in the process as pre-testing added no value whatsoever while the length of the process increased the desperation of learners forcing them to try and bribe their way through," he said.

There were also instances when learners complained that authorities at the CMED were responsible for their high failure rate.

In a statement released on October 30, Minister of Transport, Communications and Infrastructural Development Nicholas Goche noted that there "has been a down-side that has made the strategy counter-productive."

Minister Goche said that the learner driver cycle had became unnecessarily bureaucratic, the system had been infiltrated with corrupt elements feeding on the innocent applicants and value addition was compromised.

He added that the cost of obtaining a driver's licence skyrocketed unnecessarily and was unaffordable and prone to corruption.

Driver training stakeholders said the "CMED factor" was a well-meant but poorly implemented intervention.

Executive Secretary of the Zimbabwe Driving School Associations, Lewis Geza shared the same sentiments saying they have been "fighting" pre-testing since it became operational because of the way it was being conducted.

He reiterated that some of the assessors who were forwarded by the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe to CMED had been blacklisted for corruption and incompetence.

"Initially we understood that retired instructors would be the instructors at CMED.

"This was however not feasible as there were not enough retired persons to do the job. We were shocked that the same persons whom we had purged out or blacklisted were the ones who were becoming assessors at CMED," he regretted.

He said that the association had raised the issue with former Transport Minister, Chris Mushowe.

Giving oral evidence before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport, Communication and Infrastructural Development on the effectiveness of pre-testing of aspiring drivers, in August this year, Geza said no value was derived from the involvement of CMED in pre-testing.

He said this promoted corruption, as some people tried to circumvent the cumbersome process.

"The cost of testing has become so expensive, our prospective drivers at times have to use alternative methods that see them obtaining fake documents," he was quoted saying.

He furnished the portfolio committee with dozens of fake learners' and drivers' licences, which had been intercepted by his association.

"Obtaining these fake licences has become cheaper than going through the process," he said arguing that a lot of the road carnage in the country was a result of people obtaining licences through irregular means.

He argued that the issue of road carnage, one of the reasons why CMED pre-testing was factored in, was not entirely attributable to poor driving but other factors such as the poor state of roads.

The situation was not helped by the economic challenges faced by the country.

While noting that the incidence of road carnage had not decreased during the time the pre-testing, Geza said it was important to make sure that roads especially busy ones like Harare-Masvingo Road be made safe for motorists.

He hailed the move to scrap the pre-testing as "positive".

"What we would want to see is learners doing the course in the shortest possible time at the least possible time while we make sure that standards remain high," he said.

He recommended that with the pre-testing gone, there was need for decentralisation of VID depots around the country so that there would be no pressure which could prompt corrupt activities.

He noted that since the introduction of two more depots in Chitungwiza and Belvedere in Harare, there had been a relative ease with which learners undertook testing.

He also said that there was need to fully implement the Drivers Penalty Point System whereby offending drivers accrued points during a given period.

He added that the penalty system would depend on the nature of the offence, which could lead drivers being blacklisted.

The system is operational in other countries in the world.

He said there was also need for measures to ensure that inspecting officers, examiners and instructors of every leaner are tracked so that everybody in the chain bore responsibility towards any eventualities.

The Transport Ministry has also proposed that there be such an "audit trail".

In the statement, Minister Goche proposed the audit trail as a measure to ensure accountability in case of road accidents.

This would be in the light of the examiner who would have issued the learners licence to the driver, the driving instructor who would have trained and certified the driver through the required 13 work plans, the driving examiner who would have issued the certificate of competence and the inspecting officer that would have issued the certificate of fitness to the vehicle involved in an accident.

He also proposed the Driver Penalty System and Defensive Driving Course for all drivers, among other measures.

Asked on what the scrapping of pre-tests meant, an official at the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe, a Mr Chinyere said they were still doing "discussions" on the issue but hinted that it would become "cheaper" to obtain a drivers licence.

Despite the criticism leveled against this system it had its modest achievements.

A total of 62 830 applicants attempted the VID test after having been pre tested at CMED and 31 430 passed their test and were issued with certificates of competence.

Previously, the pass rate fluctuated between 22 and 38 percent.

The pass rate was attributed to the improvement of the value chain of the driver development cycle and adherence to the new enhanced syllabus for driver instruction.