ZINARA urged to retool Road Authorities to reduce hiring costs

Bulawayo (New Ziana)-The Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) should consider retooling road authorities to reduce the amounts that they spend on hiring, which are chewing a large chunk of their disbursed allocations, an official has said.

Transport and Infrastructure Development permanent secretary Theodius Chinyanga said this on Wednesday while addressing stakeholders during a meeting that Zinara organised to engage road authorities which was held at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) exhibition centre.

Stakeholders drawn from local authorities, the government and the private sector attended the meeting.

Roads authorities in Zimbabwe include the Department of Roads in the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure Development which is responsible for trunk roads, Urban Councils which are responsible for urban roads, Rural District Councils (RDCs) and the District Development Fund (DDF) which are responsible for rural roads.

“It is not a secret that most road authorities are hamstrung in terms of road maintenance equipment. You can all agree with me that most funds that you are getting from Zinara are being committed to plant and equipment hire,” said Chinyanga.

“This is not a sustainable way of doing business, especially in the field of road rehabilitation and maintenance.”

He said often, most road authorities had been duped by fly by night contractors who were not well equipped to undertake road works at national level, adding that had ultimately compromised the quality of the work that they performed.

“The importance of a quality road network cannot be over emphasized considering the limited resources that we have. Going forward, Government is taking a bold stance to blacklist and bar all contractors who fail to deliver quality work as per contract specifications,” he said.

Chinyanga said due diligence was important in road rehabilitation for the government to realise value for its money.

He urged the road authorities to wrap up all programmes under Phase 2 of the Emergence Road Rehabilitation Programme (ERRP2) to pave way for the Road Development Programme (RDP) to start next year.

Any road authority with unfinished ERRP 2 business by end of this year would have to fund the outstanding projects from alternative sources, he said.

Starting next year, Chinyanga said the Road Fund would revert to funding periodic maintenance under the Road Maintenance Programme, which would run parallel to the Road Development Programme.

He said in line with the government vision of attaining an empowered middle-class economy by 2030, road infrastructure was one of the key drivers of development.

President Emerson Mnangagwa launched the US$400 million ERRP2 programme in 2021 to improve the country`s road network which had been damaged due to lack of maintenance over the years as the government grappled with the illegal sanctions that some Western countries imposed.

New Ziana