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Minister Mpofu

Oliver Kazunga Senior Business Reporter
THE Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) will this year disburse $50 million to road authorities up from $6 million in 2014. Zinara board member Davison Norupiri told participants at a road authorities planning and training workshop held in Bulawayo yesterday that this follows the implementation of the tolling computerisation system and a review of road access fees last year.

“I must commend Transport and Infrastructural Development Cde Obert Mpofu for his intervention in ensuring that the tariff review has been done. The tariff review and the implementation of computerisation of tollgates has enhanced Zinara’s revenue growth in 2014 and 2015 and as such increasing the disbursement figure to all road authorities,” he said.

“This year, we have set aside 53,73 percent of our total budget towards disbursements to road authorities. The disbursements will be made on a quarterly basis and I’m pleased that Zinara has already disbursed more than $3 million to authorities that have submitted acquittals and programme of works,” he said.

In 2014, Zinara disbursed $3 million to Rural District Councils (RDCs), $380,000 to the Department of Roads, Urban Development Councils $1,9 million and $500,000 to the District Development Fund (DDF).

This year, Zinara intends to disburse $20 million to RDCs, Department of Roads $12 million, DDF $6 million and $10 million to the Urban Development Councils.

Norupiri said Zinara would this year not disburse funding to authorities that have not accounted for resources previously allocated to them.

He said Zinara was working on measures to boost the road fund without increasing road access fees.

“As Zinara, we’re still looking at innovative ways of how best we can realise more revenue for the benefit of the road fund without necessarily increasing the road-user charges. The introduction of tolling in the country has gone a long way in relieving pressure on the fiscus for funding the maintenance of the state highways,” said Norupiri.

In the 2015 national budget, he said, Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa presented a $4,1 billion budget with 81 percent of the total budget going to employment costs.

Norupiri said against this background, Zinara needed to be innovative to raise funds to meet the legitimate expectations of road authorities taking into consideration that the $780 million allocation from the national budget would cater for other government operations.

Officially opening the workshop, Cde Mpofu said government was also working on adding 30 more tollgates in the country to maximise revenue for road maintenance.

The country has 26 tollgates from which it collected about $100 million last year with the bulk of the funding going towards road maintenance and rehabilitation programmes.