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forced to pay admission of guilt fines before being allowed to drive off after committing an offence.

The minister says police have no legal right to demand these “spot” fines, while the police say it is an administrative option they have, along with issuing a ticket for future payment or court appearance, or making a formal arrest of a delinquent motorist.

The minister argues that there is no legal mandate for demanding a fine at the time of the offence and wants police to issue tickets so fines can be paid later.
But the police say most motorists given tickets and allowed to pay a fine later do not do so. They have around 5 000 defaulters already and do not have the resources to hunt these down and take them to court.

But while the minister and police argue over whether fines should be paid immediately or later, they agree that the police can retain the money raised through fines to help fund their operations in addition to their budget allocations.

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The fine income has to be accounted for, but does not have to be surrendered to Treasury.
Some motorists allege that some police use the system of spot fines to bring pressure on drivers to pay bribes, but the police say that any such abuse should be reported formally and immediately so action can be taken.

The row over spot fines brewed up after an answer given by Minister Makone to a question in the House of Assembly when she said they were not mandated to demand spot fines from motorists.
She was responding to questions from Zengeza West MP Collen Gwiyo (MDC-T), who wanted to know if it was lawful for the police to demand spot fines from motorists.

Mr Gwiyo also wanted to know if the money collected by the police was remitted to Treasury.
Minister Makone said: “There is no real law in Zimbabwe that says fines should be paid on the spot. What if you don’t have the money on you?

“I think there is an obligation on our part to give a ticket to the offender whereby you can then be given maybe seven days within which to pay your fine. It is not mandatory that you pay (the fines) on the spot,” she said.

However, police spokesperson, Superintendent Andrew Phiri, yesterday said the issue of fines was within police discretion.
“Police have the privilege to use their discretion, they can either issue a ticket, arrest or demand spot fines,” he said. “Without discretion there would be no flexibility in policing.”
The main problem with tickets was that motorists who commit offences also try and avoid fines. “When police don’t demand spot fines the default rate will be very high like we have witnessed before.

“This is an operational matter and the issue of legality or illegality is neither here nor there,” Supt Phiri said.
He said the police were not getting enough resources from the Treasury. “We need vehicles and motorbikes to follow them up and with the little resources we are getting from Treasury, backlog will be very high.

Supt Phiri said the police command was angry with the public who offer bribes to police manning roadblocks.
“If police demand a bribe then motorists should give them marked money and report so that we can deal with those people. “We have to campaign for a society free from corruption,” he said.

However, some motorists argued that some cops were abusing the system to demand bribes from motorists.
“They can just make a sudden appearance while you are dropping a person at a bus terminus and arrest you and demand spot fines. This can be used as bait to a bribe because I might not have the requisite fine on me,” said one motorist.

Meanwhile, Minister Makone confirmed that the police were given the permission to retain all the money they collect from offenders.
“My understanding is that we have been given the permission to retain all of the collections that we make. This was done during the time of hyper-inflation and no adjustments have been made for us to remit anything to the Ministry of Finance.

“For the time being, the correct position is that we are retaining for use within the ZRP any amount that we collect, but obviously the figures are audited.