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Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Reporter
BULAWAYO City Council (BCC) has said it is self-funding the rehabilitation of Luveve Road with the local authority expecting to spend at least US$1,2 million on the project.
The road works, which started over a week ago, are expected to be complete within three months. Last year, council presented a $3 billion budget to Government for its road rehabilitation programme.
This was after Government had pledged to release funds to rehabilitate some of the city roads, which are in a bad state.
Council has identified five key roads that require emergency rehabilitation – Luveve Road, Matopos Road, Wellington Road, Khami Road and Steelworks Road.
It intends to do overlays along Khami Road from the Flyover to Mpopoma Avenue as well as Matopos Road from 23rd Avenue to Leander Road.
Council also intends to patch potholes, and improve drainage and road signage.
Bulawayo’s roads are riddled with potholes and the situation has been worsened by the onset of the rainy season.
Bulawayo City Council is on record saying 70 percent of its road network has outlived its lifespan. The authority requires about US$700 million to fix the roads.
Responding to Chronicle, BCC corporate communications manager, Mrs Nesisa Mpofu said they are still waiting for the release of funds from the Government.
“While waiting for release of funds from the Government, we are using our own funds for the Luveve Road rehabilitation works,” she said.
In a statement last week, the Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) said last year, a total of $30,6 billion was disbursed with the Department of Roads getting $15,4 billion while the Rural Infrastructure Development Agency (RIDA) got $8,1 billion.
Urban councils were allocated $4 billion with rural district councils getting $2,9 billion. BCC got $266 million.
“The mandate of the Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) as enshrined in the Roads Act (Chapter 13:18) is to fix, collect and disburse road user charges to four road authorities namely the Department of Roads, the Rural
Infrastructure Development Agency, urban councils and rural district councils,” read the statement.
“Zinara is committed to executing this mandate and has over the past two years recorded key milestones in terms of aligning the institution to its legislative mandate.”
Zinara said in keeping with the dictates of the Roads Act and the need to ensure that funds were utilised with probity, the organisation undertook to capacitate road authorities through training them on several issues.
A total of 93 local authorities received training on procurement and audit issues, contract management and the acquittal process among other issues before disbursing the funds.
“The initial budget for 2022 was $17 billion, but to cater for other variables during the year, it was later reviewed to $30, 6 billion through a supplementary budget which was made available to cover costs that the road authorities incurred in their existing contracts as a result of movements in the exchange rate and other factors,” said Zinara.
Zinara raised concerns with some road authorities who over-committed themselves by entering into contracts that were way above their allocations while in some instances some road works were of very low quality.
This year Zinara has already set aside $93 billion for road works and maintenance in the first quarter of the year under the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme (ERRP) and the funds are already available for disbursement to local authorities around the country.
Last year, a team from the Office of the President and Cabinet led by the Permanent Secretary Ms Nditwani Muleya visited Tsholotsho and was left stunned when a supervisor from the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development Ms Shingai Chizvaure said she had no idea how much was allocated for road rehabilitation in district. -@skhumoyo2000
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter