The Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) has blamed local authorities and excessive taxing for its inability to maintain the country’s road network. The parastatal refused to accept responsibility, for the country’s poor road network system and instead argued that it does not sufficient funds due to the fact that a lot of its revenue is taken by taxes.
Zinara also blamed the local authorities for not prioritising road maintenance arguing that the amounts collected by the authorities in parking fees should only be used for maintaining roads. The local authorities, in turn, have previously accused Zinara of allocating inadequate resources for road maintenance.
Appearing before Parliament’s Transport committee on Monday, Zinara chief executive, Nancy Masiyiwa-Chamisa said:
…Since 2009, the tax that has been accessed from Zinara and Infralink adds up to about $113 million and if you look at our revenue of $195 million, that is a very significant figure . . . as of now we are sitting on a garnish of $24 million for Zinara and $23 for Infralink, adding up to $47 million…we have been given a temporary relief by Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa
She also argued that Zinara should be put in charge of all the money that is collected by the city of Harare from parking. Masiyiwa-Chamisa added that while Zinara was okay with Harare City Council depositing the parking fees in their own account, they want to be allowed to audit the technical use of the money.
It is our humble submission that parking should accrue to Zinara, we are amenable that parking collected in Harare must be used on Harare roads to effect that.
This $8 million be deposited into the Harare City Council account for the city’s roads but that Zinara be allowed to audit the financial and technical use of that money.
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