Zinara, Harare City Council trade blows

Philemon Jambaya

The Zimbabwe National Roads Administration has responded to Harare City Council’s allegations that it is not committed to releasing funds for road rehabilitation.

While the two institutions fight, it is the motorists and other road users who suffer as Harare roads are in a deplorable state and they are in of emergency rehabilitation.

Driving along Simon Mazorodze, Mbare, the Southerton industrial area, Glen Eagles among others, is a nightmare which calls for the city council and Zinara to put off their boxing gloves and put on industrial attire while they work towards better roads in the capital.

Instead, Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume on Tuesday said they would take Zinara to court for failing to avail enough funds to HCC.

“Council will take Zinara to court so it can be deconstructed,” says Mafume.

He added that in the last five years, out of expectations of plus/ minus US$60 million per year, City of Harare received less than US$2.5 million per year from the national roads authority.

However, Zinara Board Chairperson George Manyaya said that it is not their duty to respond to rhetoric although it is their duty to inform the nation of what is really going on.

Manyaya said City of Harare needs to meet the dictates of the law.

“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 ZWL$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.

“As a result, they failed to access an early disbursement in 2021. The City of Harare’s allocation for 2021 was ZWL$1.3 billion which again can be translated to USD using the exchange rate at the time. However, the City of Harare only requested ZWL$154 million of this total allocation and failed to utilise in excess of ZWL$1.1 billion,” said Manyaya.