City Of Harare | Roads authorities, Zinara to sit over road funds

The Zimbabwe National Road Authority is set to conduct an Indaba with road authorities with a view to ventilate the formula used to disburse road funds. This follows a meeting held by Mayor Jacob Mafume and Zinara Board Chairperson Dr George Manyaya and officials from the two institutions. Mayor Mafume has been an avid critic of the formulae used to disburse funds which was crafted more than 20 years ago describing it as “a formula from hell”. Speaking after the meeting Mayor Mafume said they had fruitful deliberations with Zinara and was looking forward to discuss the contentious issue. “One of the issues we discussed with Zinara is the issue of disbursement. We need to come up and work on timeous disbursements of the money. We need to have a relook at the formula used to disburse roads funds. It is part of the problem.” “There has been a formula of disbursing funds which was designed in 2000 which was as a result of stakeholders meeting that was held then with the assistance from the World Bank and others. “As we all can appreciate It’s been 23 years now and this formula must be relooked and we cannot review it as Harare alone. We need to review it with Stakeholders and they are going to represent it to their relevant authority as a request for us. Mayor Mafume said at the meeting which Zinara agreed to urban local authorities will argue their case so that Cities get a reasonable disbursement. As a city our argument is fairly simple which they have agreed to look at and present to their authorities.” Mayor Mafume said they also agreed to look at the operating systems to make them work faster and more efficient so that council can attend to the roads. He said they also agreed that the US$2 million that Council has been receiving for the past five years needs to be reviewed equitably going forward. The Mayor said they have also agreed on the issue of retooling council as it is responsible for the road maintenance in Harare.