The Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) has disbursed $42 million countrywide for road projects as it resumes its core functions as enshrined in the Road Act.

A forensic audit at Zinara by Grant Thornton showed that the parastatal had abandoned its core functions to implement road construction, a preserve of road authorities.

The new Zinara board, led by Engineer Michael Madanha, stamped its authority and stopped all non-core functions that Zinara had given itself, hence the latest disbursements to road authorities.

As a result of the concerted efforts by the board, revenue collection has improved while corporate culture at the parastatal has also changed.

Acting Zinara chief executive Mr Suston Muzenda confirmed the latest disbursements to The Herald.

“We have also resumed disbursements to road authorities beginning end of June 2019,” he said.

“To date, we have disbursed about $42 million to the four road authorities, namely Department of Roads (in the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development), District Development Fund and rural and urban councils.”

Mr Muzenda said Zinara was working on the installation of electronic systems at tollgates to plug revenue leakages.

Eng Madanha said his board will leave no stone unturned in its quest to restore normalcy at Zinara and ensure a world class road network by 2030 in line with President Mnangagwa’s vision.

“There is visible progress at Zinara in sorting out the rot at the institution. Zinara now sticks to its core functions which are to fix user fees, disburse funds to local authorities, monitor and evaluate, capacitate road authorities and to play an advisory role to the Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development,” he said.

“By sticking to its core mandate, Zinara eliminated the risk of fraud in the roads construction area where contracts were being paid directly by the institution instead of the road authorities.”