PRESS RELEASE: ZINARA CHAMPIONING INFRASTRUCTURE REVOLUTION
The Zimbabwe National Road Administration (ZINARA) hereby presents the key milestones and funding strategies for Road routine and periodic maintenance and Emergency Road Rehabilitation Program 2 to its Stakeholders.
As the Board of a strategic national institution, we find it prudent to open channels of communication with the nation to engage and keep the nation abreast with all our activities to ensure that no one is left behind. Accordingly, let me take this opportunity to give a summary of our mandate in the road infrastructure development matrix. ZINARA is a Road Fund manager, and our mandate is to fix road user charges; collect such charges or any other revenue of the Road Fund and allocate and disburse such funds to Road Authorities in line with the Roads Act [Chapter 13:18], the Public Finance and Management Act, and as per other policy and procedure frameworks. The Road Authorities that we disburse to are, the Department of Roads under the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development, the District Development Fund in the Office of the President and Cabinet and the various Urban and Rural District Councils. All entities falling under these Road Authority groups are thereafter responsible for the maintenance of our road networks. 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 respective 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 ninety-three (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 so as to avoid a scenario where contractors have to attend to patching work recurrently.
It is not a secret that the current state of our roads is worrisome and resultantly as you may recall His Excellency the President Dr. E.D Mnangagwa in February 2021 declared all roads to be in a state of national disaster following the heavy rains that we received during the 2020-2021 rainy season. The President went on to launch the Emergency Rehabilitation Road Program 2 (ERRP2) to urgently ameliorate the devastation of our road infrastructure. The (ERRP2) is in line with the ethos of the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) whose key aspirations include Infrastructural Development as a key enabler in attaining Vision 2030.
Given the foregoing, ZINARA was mandated to mobilise the financing of the emergency road rehabilitation works and the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development, Honourable Felix Mhona has left no stone unturned in spearheading the fulfilment of this national cause. As you might be aware, during the inauguration ceremony of the Board, we pledged to the nation that the rebranded ZINARA will be an epitome of good corporate governance compliance guided by the values of transparency and disclosure. Today marks an important step in the fulfilment of that pledge as we present key facts and figures regarding our operations. In particular, we are presenting a report on the disbursements made by the Fund in the previous year and the disbursements for this year.
During the year 2021 (March to December), ZINARA, under the guidance of and support from the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development and Treasury, disbursed $9.5 billion ZWL to support Phase 1 and 2 of the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Program 2 works across the country. The funds were disbursed to the Road Authorities.
Below is a summary of the disbursements made to the Road Authorities in 2021. I am happy to announce that no single Road Authority is owed what it was allocated last year.