Business Reporter
A Bulawayo City Council’s (BCC) report has acknowledged receipt of a whopping ZWG61,9 million from the Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (ZINARA) in yet another gesture testifying the latter’s growing reputation of transparency in revamping the country’s roads.
The local authority said the disbursement was in line with the BCC’s Emergency Roads Rehabilitation Programme 2 (ERRP2) for the period of 2024.
Since 2017, the new ZINARA board has committed to improved and timeous disbursements within the confines of available resources and currency.
The BCC however blamed the experienced delays in implementing the projects on the part of contractors.
“The ERRP2 allocation for the year 2024 was ZiG18 568 731 for procurement of the asphalt batching plant (including supporting equipment) and for routine maintenance works. To date, Zinara has disbursed ZiG11 916 058,85..
“The disbursed funds had been earmarked for the hire of asphalt batching plant, procurement of pothole patching materials, premix for localised overlay and pavement reconstruction works, road marking and traffic signs using both in-house teams and contractors,” the local authority said
However, ZINARA has not been able to disburse foreign currency as demanded by some of the contractors due to factors way beyond its control since most of the revenue collected is in ZWG .
“The Zinara allocation went towards both routine and periodic maintenance work. The department intended to spend 70% (ZiG43 390 775,40) of the allocation on periodic maintenance works (that is Matopos Road overlay works) and the remaining 30% (ZiG18 596 046,60) on routine maintenance citywide (that is, pothole patching, crack sealing and slurry sealing),” BCC said.
Council also indicated that there was a need to improve visibility of the road line marking of all existing bays and marking of new parking bays.
Indications were that the tender for the supply of road line marking paint had been awarded and it was expected that deliveries would start last month.
The department said it was expecting to acquire a road line marking machine to capacitate internal teams.
