/ 5 August 1994

Ticket Just Hand Over The Money

Chris Louw

REGULAR visitors to Mozambique say they have become accustomed to bribery and corruption at police roadblocks and when stopped by traffic officers.

Pieter van Wyk of Pretoria described this week how he was recently stopped five times while travelling the 240km of the Tete corridor from Malawi to Zimbabwe.

At one point he was fined for driving 62km/h in a 50km/h speed zone. He said it was quite clear that the meter used to trap him was out of order and stuck at 62km/h.

“All other people caught in the speed trap registered the same speed — 62km/h.” He was fined $20 and paid in travellers’ cheques.

Earlier on the same route, Van Wyk was caught for speeding by a traffic officer who had no measuring instruments. When he explained that he was just travelling through Mozambique and did not have any local currency on him, Van Wyk was forced by the officer to buy money from a black-market dealer to pay the “fine” of 100 000 meticais.

He was stopped by a policeman a few kilometres further who, on discovering that the car’s indicators did not work, asked Van Wyk: “What is your fine?”. Van Wyk said he understood this to mean: “How much are your prepared to pay?”

The policeman then took all the Zambian money Van Wyk had on him, an amount of 40 kwacha (about R20).

Pretoria auditor Rhinus Groeneveld described similar experiences. On his way to Xaixai, 200km north of Maputo, he was stopped no less than five times at roadblocks, twice by policemen who said it was their birthday and they wanted a present. They were not satisfied with the money he offered and only handed him back his licence once they were satisfied with the amount offered — in one instance 10 000 meticais, in the other 15 000 meticais.