$100m roads kitty used well: Zinara

THE Zimbabwe National Road Administration (zinara) released over $104 million towards the rehabilitation of roads from January to October this year.

In an interview, zinara acting chief executive officer Engineer Moses Juma said great strides have been made in the rehabilitation of the country’s road network.

“As of October 27, we had released $14,2 million for rural councils; urban councils we have released $29, 6 million, District Development Fund $17,9 and then Department of Roads $32,6million. In total, we have deployed a total of $104million for the development of roads,” he said.

Eng Juma said zinara was satisfied with how local authorities who benefited from its funds utilised the monies.

“I think in 2017 there has been a great improvement in the utilisation of zinara resources.

“This has been witnessed in the output both in urban and rural centres. There are many roads that have been resealed in urban areas while in the rural centres there are a lot of roads that have been graded,” said Eng Juma.

“In rural areas at the end of October we had graded over 33 000KM of gravel roads and in the urban areas and some parts of the rural areas we had resurfaced 387KM. Across the country there is a lot of work on the gravel and surfaced (roads).

“There has been great improvement on the state of the country’s roads following His Excellency’s declaration of the state of disaster on our country’s roads.”

He said the road authority remains committed towards continuous improvement of the country’s road network.

Eng Juma, however, said most councils have been having challenges accessing road rehabilitation equipment.

“We have noticed that there has been a challenge in accessing equipment.

“The contractors who have been engaged are now working at full throttle. I think in terms of scope of work in 2017 on roads there has been so much and contractors are fully engaged and most road authorities are finding it difficult to access equipment on the market,” Eng Juma.