Zinara to start paying road contractors

THE Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (Zinara) will start paying contractors once they have completed their jobs after it emerged a majority were doing shoddy work.

In an interview, Zinara’s technical director Engineer Moses Juma said Zinara was concerned with poor works done by contractors which has seen it changing its strategy.

“There was a variation in the rates where in the past we used to pay for the time the equipment is spent on a project but we are going change that to pay on output based road construction whereby we pay for work done. What it means is that if a contractor does sloppy work, we will not pay. We will ask them to make it good at their own cost. We have now changed the strategy of implementing road works,” said Eng Juma.

He said most of the roads that are being rehabilitated were not satisfying motorists who are the biggest stakeholder in the transport sector.

Addressing road authorities in Bulawayo on Wednesday, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development, Mr Munesu Munodawafa, said Government was committed to road maintenance and has assigned Zinara to oversee the road works been done.

“You are aware that the Government has put together $15 million that is it has disbursed. And according to our plans we expect within a period not more than three weeks to disburse more than double what we have already disbursed. I expect that the figure will be in the region of about $30 million plus,” said Mr Munodawafa.

He warned that the road authorities will have to account for the funds they have received before further disbursements are made.

Mr Munodawafa expressed concern that Rural District Councils (RDCs) were not prioritising the rehabilitation of major roads in their areas.

He said RDCs should coordinate with the Department of Roads instead of the haphazard way they were doing their road works.

“I’ve even said this to the Department of Roads that try to focus on corridors, if an RDC picks up a road let it do its part and they do theirs rather than this disjointed planning where everyone seems to be doing a road of their choice and there is no connection, no inter-linkages between those roads and at the end of the day there’s no value for money. We need to plan together and execute our projects together,” said Mr Munodawafa. — @nqotshili