Business Reporter
THE Zimbabwe National Road Administration’s (ZINARA) astute management strategies circumvented the concern from nose diving into the tide externally induced financial losses.
The ZINARA CEO, Nkosinathi Ncube recently said during the just ended 2023 financial year, a series of external economic threats were strategically navigated along to keep the parastatal’s head above the waters.
He described the financial year 2023 as a year that required “ astute strategies suitable , acceptable and feasible for navigation around currency depreciation challenges” which had an impact on value of revenue and on operating costs .One such strategy that was deployed was
“The timely fee reviews for tolling and licensing revenue lines , as this acted as market shock absorber, ensuring that value of revenue collected was preserved for onward disbursement to attributable to measures put in place by the government ,” he said.
Ncube underscored that under the dual currency environment that subsisted , persistent strategic leveraging on supporting legislative framework promulgated by the government also helped to ensure containment of loss in value on revenue collected .
“During the period, inflation adjusted revenue closed buoyant at ZWL1,52 trillion , 128% up against tolling and licensing contributing the most at 35% and 31% revenue contribution respectively. Exactly ,40% of this revenue was disbursed towards routine and periodic maintenance and a surplus in the first quarter of 2024,” he said.
The ZINARA CEO said as part of cost transformation and process re-engineering strategic initiatives ,ZINARA relocated Shamva tollgate to the new Juru Tollgate site during the period under review , a strategy which has seen congestion problems being resolved , cost structure being transformed , and revenue collection being optimized.
This strategy is expected to remain relevant going forward, given the high instances where the sprawling metropolitan encroaches on the 10 km radius from town on the back of plans to relocate Dema and Skyline tollgates.
“These cost transformation initiatives have seen the administration cost ratio reducing from budgeted level of 12% to 10% in 2023.The Administration is working flat out to transform the cost structure that breached the 2,5% threshold in 2013 when revenue collection was transferred to ZINARA,” added Ncube.
Cost transformative initiatives chanelled thus far has seen the ratio which ranged between 13 – 15% in the yester years now coming down.Legislative processes that have been kickstarted to review the administration clause in Roads Act is expected to go a long way in aligning the cost threshold to the obtaining revenue collection structure.
On E-Governance framework ,ZINARA fully rolled out and implemented SAP ERP phase 1 during the period under review , while the rolling of key revenue systems such as etolling , in its variant forms affordable are set to move at a faster pace in the coming financial periods.
