ZINARA faces wrath over ‘formula from hell’

BERTHA MASAMVU

The Zimbabwe National Roads Authority (ZINARA) has come under fire from local authorities for allegedly failing to disburse adequate funds for roads rehabilitation with Harare saying the organisation’s disbursement policy was a “formula from hell.”

Harare has argued on the need to have the local authority in charge of vehicle licensing insisting what they were receiving from the roads authority was insignificant.

“ZINARA has only disbursed 10%. Firstly, ZINARA has a formula from hell to disburse money,” Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume said. “It is a concoction of bone throwing mathematics that they are using,” he added.

“We have over 1 million vehicles registered in Harare and we expect that if those cars were paying in US dollars per quarter, that is US$30m so we expect ZINARA to just take an administration fee and remit the US$29m back to Harare.”

Mafume said ZINARA was using money meant to rehabilitate roads in Harare for others outside the city.

“However, it does not do that, it takes the money, starts building roads in game parks and in areas where they have not paid and roads in Harare where the vehicles are registered don’t get the money. They then give us 30% of the ZWL$2bn they were supposed to give us but they have not given us,” he said.

ZINARA spokesperson Tendai Mugabe could not immediately comment on the matter saying he needed to first go through what Mafume had said.

“I haven’t heard what he [Mafume] said. I can only comment from an informed position,” he said.

In Bulawayo, councillors are accusing the government of being complicit in the continued deterioration of roads saying nothing much was being done.

The city fathers said the government was taking away all the rehabilitation projects from the local authority and only three roads out of the possible 18 have so far been fixed.

Bulawayo Mayor Solomon Mguni said the central government has not rehabilitated the country’s second largest city since 2021.

As a stop gap measure, the local authority has resorted to filling the potholes with sand.

However, following the recent downpours recorded in the city in the past week, the sand has been washed away resulting in potholes being exposed.