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Tendai Mugabe Senior Reporter—
THE Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (Zinara) has disbursed $16 million to road authorities countrywide since January. It has warned those who abuse the funds that they would face the full wrath of the law. In the first half from January to June, the road administrator disbursed $12 million to all 60 rural district councils and 33 urban councils.
Only 26 councils have acquitted their first allocations and received their second quarter disbursements of $4 million.
Zinara human resources director, Mr Precious Murove, told The Herald on Tuesday that they were waiting for acquittals by other local authorities before making second quarter disbursements.
“In the first quarter of 2015, we budgeted $12 million for disbursements of which the full amount was disbursed to 90 road authorities,” he said.
“In the second quarter, only 26 road authorities acquitted and have since received their second quarter disbursements.”
Mr Murove said audits of local authorities by Zinara officials were underway and that those who abused the money risked being disqualified from further handouts.
He said they were empowered by the Road Act to do the audits and that in cases where abuses were noted, the law would take its course.
“Zinara has technical and financial auditors whose job is to audit all the road funds and projects for all road authorities.
“Currently, we are working on these audits. We are not yet in a position to give details because our audit teams are still compiling data, he said.
Mr Murove said councils that abuse road funds would be punished.
“You might be aware that Zinara is empowered under the Act to disqualify any road authority from receiving any allocation from the road fund for such periods as the road administration may determine, for reason of failure to account satisfactorily or in accordance with the rules of the road administration, or failure to meet the prescribed technical standards in maintenance of its roads.”
Mr Murove said modalities were being worked out to export the Zinara tolling system to the region.
This comes in the wake of a visit by a delegation from the Zambian Road Development Agency to study Zimbabwe’s tolling administration.
The Zambian delegation toured the Eskbank tollgate along Mazowe road on Tuesday and expressed satisfaction with Zimbabwe’s tolling system.
Online Reporter