Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) has said it has consistently disbursed funds for road rehabilitation and maintenance to all the road authorities, including the Harare City Council.
This comes after Harare mayor Jacob Mafume said council was using own funds and City Parking proceeds for road rehabilitation and maintenance in the city as Zinara continued to allocate crumbs to the local authority.
Zinara chief executive officer Mr Nkosinathi Ncube said council did not acquit the disbursed funds in order to access their next allocation.
"Whilst we don't want to respond to rhetoric, we feel duty bound to inform the nation with facts on certain inaccuracies. Firstly, we want to categorically state that, Zinara has consistently disbursed funds for road rehabilitation and maintenance to all the road authorities, City of Harare included.
"According to the dictates of the Roads Act, a road authority can only access a new disbursement from Zinara after acquitting its previous disbursement. As for the City of Harare it is important for the nation to know that in 2020, their total allocation was $86 million which could be translated using the prevailing exchange rate at the time and Zinara disbursed 100 percent of that amount and the City of Harare failed to acquit their last disbursement," he said.
Mr Ncube said as a result, council failed to access an early disbursement in 2021.
"The City of Harare's allocation for 2021 was $1,3 billion which again can be translated to United States Dollars (USD) using the exchange rate at the time," he said.
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"However, the City of Harare only requested $154 million of this total allocation and failed to utilise in excess of $1,1 billion. In 2022, they are yet to acquit their fourth quarter disbursement of $566 million despite the fact that most road authorities have already acquitted their 2022 disbursements.
"This means that even if funds were to be disbursed today as per the Zinara schedule for 2023, Harare residents will still be deprived of service delivery until their road authority follows the dictates of the Road Act."
Mr Ncube has urged all road authorities to timeously acquit the disbursed funds in order to access their next allocation.
"It is a fact that our roads need to be rehabilitated and we need to work hand in glove to address this. Whilst some may argue the funds disbursed are not enough to meet all the needs, it will also be noble to be transparent and show the nation how the received funds were utilised."
