ZIMBABWE National Road Administration (ZINARA) has finally settled its US$206 million loan from the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA).
The loan was forwarded in 2011 to finance rehabilitative work and upgrade of the 860-kilometer Plumtree-Bulawayo-Harare-Mutare highway.
Speaking at ZINARA’s 10th annual general meeting (AGM) in Harare, board chairman George Manyaya revealed that the last payment had been deposited on September 30.
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“If you remember, there was a very topical issue when this new board and management took over, the issue to do with the DBSA loan,” said Manyaya.
“The Public Accounts Committee used to ask us about this a lot as it was not being paid.
“I would like to say that we no longer owe DBSA; we finished paying. Our last payment was on the 30th of September.”
The Manyaya-led board, which has been in office for five years now, prioritised repayment of the loan as it was hindering efforts to unlock further funding.
Over US$50 million was still owed when the board took over in December 2021.
It inherited a debt-ridden organisation that was riddled with cases of maladministration and primitive accumulation by its top bosses.
At the time, ZINARA was collecting and using most of its revenue on directors, some of whom were awarded US$4,000 to purchase gym equipment for their homes and hairstyle allowances that were exposed to have cost the administrator over US$60,000.
“The major difference now is the corporate governance,” said Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairperson Caston Matewu.
“In the previous ZINARA, there was so much mismanagement of financial resources as revealed by the forensic audit that unearthed various malpractices.
“That has now shifted and we now have a ZINARA that is toing the lane of the laws of this country. There has been a seasoning shift.
“When we used to call in ZINARA, it was chaotic but now we have no reason to call them yet they handle a lot of money. We as the PAC are quite happy with the way in which ZINARA is being run.”
Read the original article on New Zimbabwe.
