THE Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (ZINARA) has been steered into a new phase of ethical corporate governance after taking corrective measures to deal with several cases of irregularities.
The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Public Accounts this Monday ordered the ZINARA board to deal with corporate governance and irregularities flagged by a forensic report by accounting firm, Grant Thornton.
The irregularities include procurement violations, tender irregularities and financial mismanagement.
“We hauled them to account for a range of issues cited by Grant Thornton because there was a lot of rot at the firm which was affecting its ability to perform its mandate. These issues needed to be dealt with like revenue leakage, open ended contracts with suppliers and the outstanding loan to the DBSA,” said Parliamentary Committee on Public Accounts chairperson, Mr Charlton Hwende.
Board chairperson, Dr George Manyaya said the check list of imperatives to transform the organisation has largely been met through a raft of reforms.
“I am happy to say that ZINARA is now in a strong position to fund the roads maintenance. As you know that the committee asked us to deal with over 70 cases identified in the forensic report. To date we have dealt with about 66 cases successfully and some outstanding issues are not within our purview to deal with but I’m happy to say that corporate governance at ZINARA is now top notch,” he said.
Furthermore, ZINARA chief executive officer Mr Nkosinathi Ncube said funds raised from revised toll fees are being channelled to Treasury for road construction.
“Treasury revised toll fees upwards for major roads construction works and since the beginning of the year we have raised funds and government is receiving the funds which are going towards the major road works you are seeing currently taking place.”
The ZINARA leadership has succeeded in extinguishing the US$206 million loan facility from the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA), which will further put the roads administrator in a firm financial footing to further finance national road infrastructure programmes.
Positive Eye News
