Dilapidated state of roads worries legislators

By The Standard and Newsday | Feb. 24, 2022 | 2 Min read

The concerns were raised a day after Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) board chairperson George Manyaya revealed that over $17 billion would be disbursed to local authorities for road works in 2022.

BY HARRIET CHIKANDIWA PARLIAMENT yesterday questioned why Zimbabwe’s roads were in a bad state despite the disbursement of huge sums of money for maintenance amid fears of looting by local authorities.

Leader of government business in Parliament and Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs minister, Ziyambi Ziyambi, praised Zinara for transparency in the allocation of funds which he said exposed corrupt councils.

“Zinara did well (by announcing the allocations) so that they (the councils) use the money well so that when they get another allocation, they can use it better than before knowing fully well that if they are given the money, they are supposed to use it as expected,” Ziyambi said.

“Zinara was brought about by an Act of Parliament and it is not the duty of Zinara to look for engineers and all those who do monitoring and evaluation. What needs to happen is to have councils capacitated to do their work and the Ministry of Transport to also have a department to oversee that so that Zinara continues on its mandate to look for money for roads.

“There is what we call acquittal, if there is no acquittal do not rush to arrest people because there is no acquittal. In some cases, there are no funds stolen but there won’t be capacity to do things expected of them. In some cases, there is no need for arrests, but to those found to have stolen the money, I did not stand and say thieves must not be arrested. Those who steal should be arrested.”

Ziyambi was responding to Shurugwi North legislator Ronald Nyathi who asked how Zinara funds were being utilised when the country’s roads were in a deplorable state.

The matter came up for discussion after the parastatal disclosed for the first time how they were disbursing funds to local authorities for road rehabilitation.