Zinara disburses road funds

Bulawayo Bureau
The Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) in the first quarter of the year ending March 31, released $10,7 million to all provinces for road rehabilitation.

The authority’s acting chief executive Engineer Moses Juma said in a statement that technical and financial audits of all disbursed funds would soon be carried out.

“On the instruction of the Zinara board, the office of the chief executive will conduct both technical and financial audits of all funds disbursed as per our mandate to ensure value for money,” he said.

Juma said the money was part of a $48 million road fund earmarked for distribution this year.

“Of the money, $3,1 million has been disbursed to Rural District Councils (RDC) out of the $20 million annual allocation for this year. Urban councils got $2,7 million from the annual allocation of $10 million while the District Development Fund (DDF) got $1,5 million from the allocated $6 million and the Department of Roads received $3,4 million from the allocated $12 million, all adding to $10 million,” reads the statement.

Matabeleland North’s RDCs received $389,000 while its urban councils got $227,000 and $444, 000 for periodic maintenance, all totalling about $1 million for the province.

Matabeleland South got a total of $505, 500 while Midlands province was given close to $1 million.

There are four types of disbursements under Zinara.

These are routine maintenance, periodic maintenance, emergency and special project fund.

The bulk of Zimbabwe’s roads are in need of repair.

The poor state of some of the country’s roads has also been blamed for rising road accidents.

The disbursements and allocation of the funds may be based on any one or more of the following: basic percentage split of the total money available among roads of different classes and a formulation that takes into account the classes of the road, its length, width, surface type and the traffic levels on the road.

Last year, Zinara increased allocation of money to local authorities by 312 percent to facilitate improved maintenance and rehabilitation of roads.

The roads administration is a statutory body empowered to collect road fees from different streams covering toll fees, fuel levy, vehicle licences, and transit, abnormal and overload fees.