dyton mupawaenda
Farirai Machivenyika-Senior Reporter
THE Zimbabwe National Roads Administration, under its 2019 board, has managed to address 66 of the 71 governance issues raised in the Grant Thornton forensic audit ordered by the Government following abuse of public funds by the parastatal, Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has heard.
Appearing before PAC yesterday, Zinara chairman Dr George Manyaya said Zinara was working on the final five issues, but these also involved other stakeholders.
“Zinara is now on a re-branding drive, transformational, where the new Zinara is working on an ethos of accountability and transparency. We know that the funds that we collect belong to the people of Zimbabwe and it is our duty to collect and disburse with probity and propriety.
“I would like to notify the committee that of the 71 issues that were cited in the Grant Thornton forensic report, with Government support and the committee’s support, we have managed to resolve 66 of them with five of them being work in progress as they don’t involve us alone but other stakeholders,” he said.
The Dr Manyaya-led board and management was appointed in 2019 to turn around the performance of the parastatal, which is key to the roads infrastructure development.
Some of the issues raised in the audit report were lack of sound procurement procedures, poor risk and loss control mechanisms and poor collection and management of funds running into millions of dollars among other issues.
Dr Manyaya said Zinara had since established a procurement management unit and another for risk and loss control while they have also established a fully-fledged ICT department.
On the US$206 million owed to the Development Bank of South Africa for the rehabilitation of the Plumtree-Bulawayo, Harare-Mutare highway, Dr Manyaya said Zinara had managed to clear most of the debt.
“Of the US$206 million owed to DBSA, as of today (yesterday), we are left with US$59 million and if we pay off the debt, we will be able to unlock funding for other roads like the Harare-Chirundu highway,” he said.
Committee chairperson, Mr Charlton Hwende, commended Zinara for their efforts in turning around the fortunes of the parastatal and their adherence to sound corporate governance issues.
“Zinara was a problem child and as spelt out in our report, they had several issues that we raised, issues of corporate governance not being respected and we are very happy that of the issues that we raised, there about three that are left,” Mr Hwende said.
Meanwhile, Dr Manyaya said Zinara has also released ZiG59 million and US$18 million to go towards rehabilitation of some roads in Harare ahead of the Sadc Summit that will be held at the new Parliament Building in Mt Hampden.
Online Reporter