ZIMARA moves to capacitate road authorities

CLOUDINE MATOLA

The Zimbabwe National Road Administration (ZINARA) is targeting to capacitate urban and rural road authorities by providing essential equipment to strengthen their ability to carry out routine road maintenance and reduce dependence on lengthy tender processes, Business Times can report.

Speaking on the sidelines of ZINARA’s ninth annual general meeting on Monday, the administration’s chief executive officer, Nkosinathi Ncube, said the organisation’s primary focus is to empower road authorities with the tools they need to respond swiftly to maintenance needs and ensure roads are kept in a usable state.

“From a strategy point of view, the main issue is capacitation of the road authorities—the councils in rural areas, urban councils, including the Ministry of Transport itself,” Ncube said. “Where we are seeing a gap is that most do not have equipment. We are working on that capacitation to make sure that the municipalities have got their equipment and they are able to quickly respond. If, for instance, there is a pothole in a certain area, they are able to use their own resources to go and patch up that pothole. Rather than to do a tender to patch a pothole, you end up not having value.”

Ncube highlighted that while large-scale construction projects will still require external contractors, it is vital that day-to-day maintenance work is managed internally by councils and relevant authorities.

“The most important thing is that the councils get the equipment—equipment which is there to do small jobs. They can always get contractors for bigger jobs. But for day-to-day routine maintenance, the strategy is to make sure that all the road authorities have got the necessary equipment,” he added.

Ncube also revealed that ZINARA, in collaboration with the Ministry of Transport, plans to revive the Ministry’s maintenance units spread across the country to further bolster the nation’s road maintenance capabilities.

Deputy Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Development Joshua Sacco supported the initiative, stating that reviving maintenance units and capacitating councils will help the Ministry respond quicker to road defects while cutting maintenance costs.

“We are also looking at, as a ministry, issues around resuscitating maintenance units so that within the Ministry of Transport we can resuscitate maintenance, increase our own capacity as a ministry, so that wherever small interventions are needed, we have capacity within the ministry, within our councils, to buy tipper trucks, buy graders,” Sacco said.

Sacco explained that reducing dependence on contractors for minor jobs would significantly shorten response times and lower the overall cost of road maintenance.

“This will reduce time that is required for tendering processes, but also reduce cost in many cases where contracting tends to be more expensive. But this is an initiative which ZINARA is also working on, in conjunction with the Ministry of Transport, to resuscitate these maintenance units across the country. So that the Ministry of Transport’s capacity can be improved, so that we can also do interventions where necessary,” he said.

ZINARA board chairman Dr George Manyanya said the administration is also focusing on improving compliance and boosting revenue through an ambitious target to license one million vehicles this year.

“This year, we have got a big, high-vocation goal, and we want to license one million vehicles. Not only will this improve revenue collection, but it will improve compliance and ultimately improve the roads that we use. Let’s encourage each other to ensure that our vehicles are licensed,” Manyanya said.

ZINARA believes that by capacitating road authorities, reviving maintenance units, and strengthening revenue collection, Zimbabwe’s longstanding road infrastructure challenges can be addressed more sustainably.

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