By Jonathan Mbiriyamveka
The Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (Zinara) board chairperson, Dr George Manyaya, has pleaded with local authorities to submit their acquittals early saying the delays hamper on next disbursement of funds.
Councils and road authorities have to account for the previous allocations whether big or small to Zinara before they can access next disbursements.
This, in some cases, has been the reason for the blame game between road authorities and Zinara over non-disbursement of funds.
Availing the ZWL$17 billion this week which will be allocated next month to all provinces and local authorities for road maintenance under the next phase of the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme, Dr Manyaya pleaded for early acquittals.
“We plead with the Road Authorities to ensure timely acquittals which are key for them to access the next disbursements.
“I would like to thank all stakeholders for playing their complimentary roles in ensuring that we achieve our mandate,” Dr Manyaya said.
Zinara does not do road work itself, but it is the collection authority for the two sources of revenue that must be spent on roads, the vehicle licence fees and the toll charges.
It disburses this money to the road authorities and then follows up to ensure that the money was spent on road works.
Of the $17 billion, over $6,3 billion will be allocated to the Department of Roads and $4,5 billion for the District Development Fund.
Among the major urban authorities Harare City Council, the third largest beneficiary after the two main Government departments, will receive $1,1 billion, Bulawayo City Council $338 million, Gweru City Council $196,2 million, Mutare City Council $163,5 million and Masvingo City Council $122 million.
The eight non-metropolitan provinces see Mashonaland East with $519,6 million, Mashonaland Central $451,5 million, Manicaland $444 million, Mashonaland West $741 million, Masvingo Province $361 million, Midlands $661 million, Matabeleland North $524 million and Matabeleland South $495 million.
The 2017 draft Roads Conditions and Inventory Report19 reports that the Zimbabwean road network is made up of 91,665 km of which more than 4,000 km are unclassified.
A further 3,000 km is still being investigated. The road network is classified into four main groups as defined in the 2002 Roads Act such as regional trunk roads, primary roads, secondary roads and tertiary roads.
The report says total cost of rehabilitation is high.
“The unit costs for rehabilitation are dependent on the type of road, namely: gravel, earth and surfaced, and the road’s condition.
“The Department of Roads estimates the unit costs of rehabilitation of the road network to be between USD 200,000 and USD 600,000 per kilometre.
“The Transitional Stabilisation Plan estimates a portion of the Mutare-Harare-Gweru-Bulawayo dualisation to cost USD 1.2 million per kilometre. This is indicative of the heavy cost burden to rehabilitate the road network.
“The total cost of rehabilitation is estimated to be about USD 27.3 billion, with the bulk of the funding required for tertiary roads.
“In its present state, the Zimbabwean economy cannot be expected to support such large investments.”
Dr Manyaya said Zinara was a road fund manager and was disbursing such funds to road authorities in line with the Roads Act, the Public Finance and Management Act and in line with other policy and procedure frameworks.
“Let me emphasise that our role as a fund administrator is limited to availing funding to the road authorities. After funding is received by the road authorities we do follow the impact of the disbursed public funds by monitoring and evaluating their use; hence our mandate is to audit all the 93 road authorities in the country to ensure that the funds have indeed been used for their intended purpose.
“In our engagements with the road authorities, we always emphasise the importance of delivering quality road maintenance to ensure that the limited funds are stretched further over the years to avoid a scenario where contractors have to attend to patching work recurrently,” Dr Manyaya said.
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