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Rutendo Nyeve, Sunday News Reporter
THE Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (Zinara) disbursed US$86 million last year towards the rehabilitation of roads across the country amid a warning to local authorities not to overcommit and enter contracts above their allocation.
In the past two years, Zinara has consistently published all its disbursements to various road authorities as part of the board and executive’s thrust to cultivate a culture of transparency and accountability in the handling and utilisation of funds.
The administration has released the 2022 disbursements that show that the company had to double the funds disbursed through a supplementary budget to enhance the maintenance of the country’s roads.
“As at 31 December 2022, Zinara had disbursed ZWL$30 609 119 156 which translates to USD86 926 910,86 at interbank rate. This amount also covered the supplementary budget that was also approved during the course of the year. Zinara’s initial budget for disbursements for 2022 was ZWL$17 billion but to cater for other variables during the year this was later reviewed to ZWL$30,6 billion through a supplementary budget. This supplementary budget was made available to cover costs that the road authority incurred in their existing contracts because of movements in the exchange rate and other factors,” said Zinara in a statement.
The mandate of Zinara is to fix, collect, and disburse road user charges to four road authorities namely the Department of Roads, the District Development Fund, Urban Councils and Rural Councils.
“The Department of Roads was allocated ZWL$15 billion while the District Development Fund got ZWL$8 billion. Urban councils and rural development councils got ZWL$4 billion and ZWL$2,9 billion respectively. Total amount disbursed to authorities was ZWL$30,6 billion,” said Zinara.
The Midlands Province was allocated ZWL$892 million that catered for the urban and rural development councils in the province. The City of Bulawayo got ZWL$266 million while Matabeleland North province got ZWL$422 million. Matabeleland South province got ZWL$550 million.
In 2022, the nation undertook a robust model under which road works were undertaken in various areas. Apart from the works that were done by the road authorities on their own, other road works were done by the Government through the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme. Several roads especially in major cities were attended to under this arrangement. The road administration authority further highlighted that in some cases the disbursement of funds took longer as authorities had to submit reports to treasury.
“The process of disbursing the funds to the Road Authorities in some instances took longer because of the need for Road Authorities to submit due diligence reports to Treasury. The due diligence reports were meant to confirm whether the pricing in each funding request was fair, before Zinara effects payments. This was part of the Government’s efforts to realise value for money from the contracts entered between the road authorities and their suppliers,” said Zinara. — @nyeve14
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