Ministry of Transport commits to adopting neglected roads

Government through the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development, has said will continue to adopt roads mismanaged by local councils and rural councils and bring them online.

These feeder roads are arteries connecting low-lying areas countrywide with wider economy in major centres.

According to Minister of Transport, Felix Mhona, this was a decision made in line with the Act governing roads management.

“Going to the Road Act, subsection 5(4) stipulates that if a local authority fails to discharge its duties, then the Ministry of Transport will take over that responsibility and rehabilitate the road. The road will eventually be submitted back to the local authority,” he told this publication.

The ministry does rehabilitate such roads and hand them over for maintenance to the municipal authorities and that is why most urban roads are being refurbished under the same arrangement.

“When we takeover, it means that someone has failed to do their job. We appreciate the fact that the roads that are being alluded to are going to be rehabilitated and we will take them back to the municipal authorities,” Mhona added.

He took the opportunity to articulate issues relating to how funds for road repairs and maintenance from the Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (ZINARA) are disbursed.

Mhona said; “We have got four road authorities under the purview of the ministry where we are talking of Department of Roads, Local Authorities, Rural District Councils and RIDA, which was known as DDF.

“Apparently, after having graduated from this academy, where you were telling us to be transparent and accountable, we then introduced a system in the Ministry where quarterly, we broadcast whatever we disbursed.”

On a quarterly basis, ZINARA flights what they have disbursed to local authorities, contrary to other times where figures were not being articulated in terms of how much was disbursed to a local authority.

According to the minister, this new system which was invented within the ministry would articulate issues to do with where funds were misdirected, whether they were paying salaries, which was the trend within local authorities.

Now ZINARA is collecting and disbursing and this is in the public domain to follow the trend, for instance, for the past five years, how much was coming from ZINARA towards local authorities.

Mhona said: “The question must be where we said local authorities are now for licencing. You would find that anyone who would have his or her car plying our roads in Harare might register under a different local authority which was problematic in terms of lining and distributing the purse.

“Currently, we have got a pot where ZINARA is collecting and disbursing. If any citizen is not happy, we are also privy to the point of giving precise statistics in terms of what has gone to a particular local authority, Rural District Council or Department of Roads or RIDA.”-ebusinessweekly