admin
Herald Reporter
Harare Metropolitan province gets easily the largest slice of Zinara fund outside the Department of roads in the Ministry of Transport and the District Development Fund, which run the national highway system and most rural roads, after getting $199 million as of August 20 this year.
Zinara, the Zimbabwe National Roads Authority, collects all vehicle licence fees and all tolls at the tollgates. But it is a collection agency, a bit like Zimra, and passes the money to the authorities who are supposed to build and maintain the roads. With the highest concentration of vehicles, Harare naturally gets the largest slice of the cash.
This Sunday, Zinara went a step further in telling everyone what happens to the money they pay for licence discs or at tollgates and it published a schedule of where more than $4,7 billion was disbursed.
The funds that have been disbursed under the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme 2 have seen massive road works being carried out in Harare and other parts of the country.
The figures published by Zinara put to rest claims from some trying to excuse the Harare metropolitan council for doing nothing by claiming Zinara was not sending in the cash. It was.
The only delay when it comes to Zinara money is that the authority wants to know how much was spent on the last batch of cash it sent, and it does have to be spent on roads, before you get your next slice.
Zinara spokesperson Mr Tendai Mugabe said Zinara would continue to publish the disbursements quarterly as part of the new culture of transparency and accountability at the institution.
“Yes, we published the disbursements to all road authorities on Sunday and that observation is correct to say the City of Harare is our biggest beneficiary outside the Department of Roads and DDF,” he said.
“If you check closely there is a low uptake of funds by other road authorities, and we are urging them to speed up their acquittals for them to get the next disbursements.
“We do not want to keep the money because it must be used. We have stepped up our efforts to mobilise funds to ensure that we adequately fund ERRP2.”
He acknowledged that their efforts were being hampered by some motorists who were evading paying toll fees through tailgating.
“We accept the tailgating challenge, but we are in the process of upgrading our tolling infrastructure and we have also deployed dedicated supervisors stationed at the tollgates with specific targets. We constantly do spot checks through our loss control and audit departments to ensure that we maximise our collections to benefit our road users. “
Mr Mugabe said Zinara was happy that the police had committed to investigate cases of tailgating reported mainly at Dema tollgate.
“We welcome this development because this is going to help us in compliance. The net result of this is an increase in our collections and disbursement allocations.”
Zinara and Treasury were tasked to mobilise US$300 million for ERRP2 that was launched by President Mnangagwa early this year and efforts are underway to come up with other funding models for ERRP2.
Online Reporter