By Staff Reporter
THE Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (ZINARA) Monday unveiled a historic Annual Report which testifies a clear cut departure from the scandalous past.
A perusal of the latest 2023 Annual Report shows positive results yielded from the Second Republic’s Parastatal Reform initiatives. Over the years, ZINARA had been associated with corporate governance misdemeanors and non- compliance issues which included failure to produce timely audited accounts and the perennial audit qualifications by the Auditor General.
The new Board, management and staff, has been working tirelessly for the last few years to update financial records, decisively correct external audit identified critical concerns, and get the accounts audited to current.
For the first time since financial year ending 31 December 2010, the Administration’s, and the Group’s 2023 Financial Statements have received a clean audit opinion from the Auditor General.
“This is a milestone worth celebrating and sets the stage for a new era in the Administration’s compliance to the Public Finance Management Act. With the positive progress and hard work at ZINARA, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to His Excellency the President, Dr. Emmerson Mnangagwa, for the Vision of ZINARA and his continued faith in the team in delivering the tenets of infrastructure development,” the ZINARA board chairman Dr George Manyaya said.
During the period ,ZINARA remained resilient and outperformed set revenue targets capitalising on the subsistence of the dual currency environment saw revenue as reported in ZW$ terms scaling higher that both original fixed and revised budgets.
“To this end, I am happy to report that revenue for the year ended 31 December 2023 closed at ZWL898 billion (ZWL1.52 trillion inflation adjusted) against a final budget of ZWL768 billion, giving a positive variance of 17%; which was further 128% up against inflation adjusted prior year revenue of ZWL667.3 billion,” Mnyaya said.
Despite the initial lag in disbursements registered during the first quarter of 2023, emanating from a policy guideline to undertake due diligence processes on all procurement and expenditures prior to payments being effected, there was an increase in funds disbursed to Road Authorities.
The cumulative funds disbursed to Road Authorities under the Emergency Road Rehabilitation Programme 2 (ERRP2) and the Operation & Maintenance Contract closed at ZWL407 billion,32.6% above the final budget of ZWL307 billion.
The astute implementation of ZINARA’s mandate under ERRP2 has seen the relevance of ZINARA being restored during the period under review, as reflected by key road infrastructure projects that were funded by ZINARA such as the Rwenya bridge, Nyakasikana-Karanda road, Birchenough Growth Point roads, Sherwood Road re-construction, Ruya Mukumbura Road, Monte Casino road, Sanyati Growth point access roads, Makumbwe Bridge construction to mention but a few.
He added ,”Cognisant of the significant financial and economic risk-exposure for the organization, tight risk management systems remained a key component on ZINARA’s corporate governance practices. Some of the major risks identified by the Board included revenue l leakages and corrupt activities; and appropriate mitigatory measures were put in place to ensure achievement of both revenue and disbursement targets.”
