The Message May Not Come But the Bill Always Does

Dec 6 , 2025. By YITBAREK GETACHEW ( FORTUNE STAFF WRITER )

A sweeping push to digitise traffic enforcement in Addis Abeba has backfired, leaving many drivers blindsided by ballooning fines, patchy communications, and an opaque bureaucracy clinging to the veneer of modernity. A disjointed rollout of a digital citation system by the Addis Abeba Traffic Management Authority (AATMA), which, despite promising efficiency and transparency, has morphed into a Kafkaesque ordeal for the city’s 1.4 million licensed drivers, reported YITBAREK GETACHEW, FORTUNE STAFF WRITER

The first hint that dawn has broken over Addis Abeba is not the light but the growl of engines. As thin morning mist lifts, the city’s avenues fill so quickly that drivers are forced into slow-motion chess, edging, honking, signalling, and then giving up altogether when the jams harden. It has become a daily theatre of impatience, made worse by a surge in collisions and a constant shuffle of street signs.

To keep pace, the Addis Abeba Traffic Management Authority (AATMA) has ratcheted up enforcement, and eight months ago fines alone have swelled its coffers by nearly 800 million Br. That revenue spike coincided with an ambitious promise. The Authority would haul its century-old bureaucracy into the digital age.

Transport officers deployed across the city, clad in yellow vests, have stopped writing citations by hand. They have begun issuing them with a click and a photograph. Under the new rules, they take a quick shot of a driver’s licence, hand it back, and tell the driver to watch for a text message explaining the offence and the ticket amount. In theory, the driver has 10 days to pay through Telebirr or CBE Birr before daily interest kicks in.

However, theory met Addis Abeba’s telecom networks and buckled. Complaints began surfacing almost immediately that the messages never came. Some motorists waited weeks, others months, and a few up to five months. Then, late last week, the Authority posted a terse notice urging everyone to “check your licence status at the Traffic Management Office”. Panic erupted. At branch offices across the city, drivers discovered small fines had ballooned. A 1,000-Br ticket, untouched because the text never arrived, now demanded 6,500 Br.

Yidnekachew Kelemework's story captured this confusion. One afternoon at St Michael’s traffic light in Jemo neighbourhood, an intersection so chronically clogged that drivers routinely take desperate detours, he steered his Toyota pickup towards a side street shortcut to Lebu Mebrathayl direction. A traffic officer waved him over, took his licence, snapped a photograph and, without clarification, told him, “Wait for a message!”

“I was asking myself what ‘wait for the message’ even meant,” Yidnekachew recalled. “I didn't know about this digital system then.”

Three months passed, and silence followed. Friends whispered about penalties soaring because texts never materialised. Nervous, he went to the Traffic Management Office on Chad St., near Torhailoch Hospital. There, he learned the 500-Br fine he did not know existed had ballooned to 2,400 Br. He was told that the system sometimes cannot send text messages due to congestion.

“According to them, the responsibility is mine, not theirs, which doesn't make sense at all,” he told Fortune. “I understand it now because I learned it myself, not because an officer told me.”

Yidnekachew left feeling tricked. The maths was straightforward but punishing, with 25 Br of interest added every day and 50 Br to a 1,000-Br ticket.

More than 35,000 drivers sat in the same limbo, with no message but rising interest, before the public notice jolted them awake.

One of them is Aschalew Tesfaye, a bank officer who moonlights as a weekend ride-hailing driver, earning 3,000 Br gross on a good day. On September 15, 2025, he drove a Toyota Vitz along Guinea-Bissau St. toward German Roundabout. A radar gun clocked him at 47Km/h in a 40Km/h zone. Officers took his licence, photographed it and handed it back.

“They told me to wait for a message,” he recalled. “They told me to pay after I receive the message. I waited for a message that never came.”

He heard nothing for months. Because his only passenger that day was hurrying to a funeral, he even imagined the officers had shown leniency. Eventually, a friend urged him to check his status. Aschalew found out that the initial 1,500-Br speeding ticket jumped to 6,450 Br.

“I was shocked," he said. "I didn't expect that at all.”

Aschalew protested, arguing that he did not receive any message and that the Authority should take responsibility. His appeal was brushed aside. An officer in charge told him that it was his responsibility to pay within 10 days. The advice he received before being dismissed was simple. Regularly open the driver app or visit one of the Authority’s eleven branches in case a message fails.

Humiliation followed frustration. When Aschalew tried to complain again, an officer jibed.

“Do you want me to pay for you?” Aschalew called the tone disrespectful and the accumulated interest unjust. “It took me 15 days to come up with the money. It's very frustrating."

Inside the branch, he glimpsed still harsher stories. Fines that had climbed to 18,000 Br made him leave home exhausted.

Another driver, an exporter who asked not to be named, faced a similar spiral. Stopped at the Mulu Wengel lights near Torhailoch Hospital, he surrendered his licence and was told the same thing: “You'll receive a message.” After a month of silence, and after social-media chatter about spiralling fees, he checked in person. The 1,000-Br fine he never knew existed had reached 4,750 Br.

“I didn't know I had been issued a ticket," he recalled. "If I knew, I would've paid within 10 days. They should take responsibility for their mistakes. There was no text. I don't know what they are doing?”

Under the previous manual system, most drivers paid within a day of officers handing over paper citations. Now the queue was virtual and longer.

“In the past, the problem was waiting in line to pay," he said. "Now it's a digital queue. Literacy is the main gap. Why should we pay the cost if officers are not trained well enough to explain what our violation was?”

He was not even sure officers grasp the platform they are enforcing.

Behind the glass doors at headquarters, the man in charge of the system is Mulugeta Degefu. As the Authority’s technology officer, he insisted that the platform has been “fully operational since early 2025” and was designed to slash branch congestion by allowing drivers to pay remotely. He conceded teething problems, including inadequate public awareness, wobbly network coverage, and confusion over whether licences issued outside the capital are recorded in Addis Abeba’s database. But he urged that the momentum is turning.

“Now the trend is improving,” he told Fortune.

Mulugeta argued the benefits are clear. Officers no longer impound licences, for everything is tagged in the cloud. There are no loopholes for those who believe a missing card means a missing fine. If a motorist racks up more than five violations, an extra 850 Br and five percent interest are added automatically. The database already holds records for 1.4 million drivers, and from January through November 2025, it logged 172,743 penalties. More than 40,000 of those remain unpaid, often because the driver has not received a text.

“Some drivers assumed that if their licence was still with them, they didn't need to pay the penalty,” said Mulugeta. “But the system records everything. When they try to renew their car registration or driver's licences, the system tracks it and issues them fines with daily accumulated interest.”

Facing criticism, Mulugeta offered explanations that straddle technology and human error. Sometimes drivers give numbers that are switched off or wrong. Sometimes the phone number on the licence does not work. His team rings, but the call shows “Traffic Management” and goes unanswered. Some customers have blocked short codes. Network signals drop. Still, he insisted, it is a shared responsibility.

“You must ask what happens if you've a fine and you miss the text,” Mulugeta told Fortune.

Nonetheless, he admitted one tactical mistake of telling drivers a text would be sent. The Authority has since issued a circular requiring officers to give the payment code immediately. If the text never lands, the code, handed over on the spot, should guide the driver through the app or the call centre. The system logs the moment a message is dispatched, delivered or fails. Officers on the road do not know the final sum. The server calculates that later.

Mulugeta urged drivers to never leave without asking why their licence was taken and recording the Violation Ticket number.

“There are penalties for traffic officers who break regulations, which are being implemented,” he told Fortune.

According to a Traffic Management officer, speaking anonymously, they bear the public’s fury even though deeper problems lurk in coding and connectivity. He observed many drivers ignoring their explanations and providing bogus contact details.

“I've checked many drivers' phones by calling the numbers they provided, and most of them weren't correct,” he said. “Later, they come back to us asking for the code.”

The officer insisted that the system must close these gaps to end the blame game.

The city authorities backed the digital shift for a simple reason: money. They expect automated processes to surpass last year’s 700-million-Br collection by standardising fines and interest. Without heavy cash counters at branch offices and with every licence linked to renewal services, compliance should soar.

But technologists warn that software alone cannot rewrite habits.

Belete Ejigu (PhD) is a lecturer in emerging metro-systems at the Civil Service University. He saw how Addis Abeba’s experience mirrors what he has seen in other African capitals.

“Digitalisation is necessary but must be introduced gradually,” he argued.

Worldwide, transport agencies are racing beyond paper fines toward real-time mobility control. Yet, many drivers here still learn rules by word of mouth. Belete, seeing faults in every corner, would like the authorities at the Traffic management to ask whether the system is operating well, and officers understand it? Have they been trained? And are connectivity issues resolved?

He also urged drivers not to remain passive, but to know the deadline and ask questions.

“There is a problem on both sides,” he said. “If the Authority authenticated the system, it should generate text messages. Drivers, on their part, must ask questions. It's not fair to leave a driver without information and to impose unnecessary costs.”

Belete pointed to gaps in internet capacity, leaving the platform unable to meet its own standards. Many taxi and ride-hail drivers focus on daily takings and forget their dues.

"I know drivers who drove for more than five days with penalty papers. That's not a good trend,” he told Fortune, recalling a time when motorists carried penalty papers for days and still operated.“Taking time to pay on time is ideal. The Authority should reassess everything from its officers to its system capacity."

The technology itself is not exotic. Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa already run digital traffic-penalty schemes. Estonia is often cited as the global benchmark. According to Belete, the lesson should be that an app cannot fix ignorance in the absence of awareness on both sides.

PUBLISHED ON Dec 06,2025 [ VOL 26 , NO 1336]