Background

Harare - On the 28^th of February, 2024, the Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (ZINARA) held a press conference for an operational review of the full-year 2023 to 31 December 2023. The parastatal alluded that the gross fees collected improved against prior year owing to a number of strategies employed by the administration, and the performance is expected to further grow in 2024.

According to Dr. George Manyaya, the ZINARA Board Chairman, a total of ZWL868 billion was collected by ZINARA in 2023 as the overall revenue, and this was 13% above target. Of this aggregate, toll fees (tollgates) contributed 38% of the revenue, followed by licencing fees which contributed 34% (up from 30% in 2022). Fuel levies and transit fees contributed 15% and 11% respectively. The Chief Executive Officer of ZINARA, Nkosinathi Ncube, attributed the growth in licencing fees to collaborations with entities like Central Vehicle Registry (CVR), Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) and Vehicle Inspectorate Department (VID) to increase compliance by road users.

On the currency mix of the collected fees, receipts from licencing fees constituted 70% ZWL and 30% US$, while toll fees were largely denominated in ZWL. The fuel levies and transit levies were, however, predominantly in US$. Nkosinathi said, out of the gross fees collected by ZINARA in 2023, 88% was channeled to road rehabilitation while 12% covered the administration and operational expenses of ZINARA as an entity.

After the allocation of collected fees and collated revenues and expenditure, ZINARA closed the year 2023 with a surplus of ZWL57 billion. However, the parastatal said this surplus refers to money not collected by road authorities for servicing of their respective roads as some road authorities were still using funds that they collected before on uncompleted road projects.

Road authorities, as per above, typically refer to respective city councils. ZINARA collaborates with these road authorities for the servicing of roads across the country. It is important to note, according to the ZINARA Chairman, that the parastatal is only concerned with the rehabilitation and maintenance of existing roads as opposed to the creation of new roads, and this is implemented as a collaborative function with the respective road authorities.

Challenges

ZINARA is mandated to only service gazzeted roads (serviced and launched as public roads by the government through relevant ministries), and therefore, since most roads in the residential areas and new developments are not yet gazzeted, the parastatal has no jurisdiction to oversee these roads.

Since ZINARA is a national body that handles the disbursement of money for rehabilitation of roads countrywide, the allocation to road authorities is prescribed in the roads Act, and follows a scientific model which has gained backlash from the public. However, while ZINARA plays its role to disburse funds, respective road authorities have shown different completion rates of road projects over the years, with particular authorities having carry-overs of projects into proceeding years which has slowed-down disbursement of more funds for more or new projects.

In 2023, Harare and Manicaland had the largest claims of road maintenance budget from ZINARA while Bulawayo had the lowest. This is due to the aforementioned challenged of uncompletion of prior road projects which hinders ZINARA from disbursing more funds for new projects before completion of previous ones.

It is also important to note that ZINARA does a quarterly disbursement of money to road authorities for routine maintenance of roads, and this is expected to improve in 2024 as more allocations are expected to be granted. However, while ZINARA plays this disbursement role, it is the role of the road authority to come up with a road maintenance programme or proposal, which is submitted to the relevant government Ministry for assessment and scrutiny before ZINARA avails the requested budget. In this regard, ZINARA has often taken public scrutiny for a lack of a road maintenance programme which is rather the duty of a respective local road authority.

Over the past years, ZINARA has faced the challenge of an alarmingly low compliance rate from road users. This rate has fairly improved in recent years due to improving technology and collaborations. Nevertheless, the lag in a full-blown collaboration with all government entities has kept a subdued compliance rate, which in 2023 stood at 60% in licencing. According to official statistics, Zimbabwe has a total 1.2 million registered vehicles. Out of this total, only a circa 800,000 are compliant to licencing fees, before considering other regulatory fees.

Prospects

In a bid to enhance efficiencies and align with the fast-changing technological world, ZINARA has announced it will be enrolling e-tolling this year on a hybrid model on existing toll gates, and a full e-tolling service on new toll gates. The hybrid model will see the e-tolling services being added to already existing models on the existing toll-gates, thereby retaining all the workforce. This model will significantly reduce traffic delays and ensure a smooth flow of vehicles at toll-gates. Furthermore, ZINARA also has plans underway to upgrade six toll gates to toll plazas, including the recently commissioned Dema tollgate, to boost the collection rate.

Pertaining to road authorities, previous road rehabilitation projects have faced challenges ranging from procurement of fuel to costly hiring of equipment. In 2024, ZINARA has rolled out a new operational model where road authorities will receive fuel directly from ZINARA while equipment will also be provided by the parastatal. ZINARA said the government has already sanctioned the procurement of the equipment, and the plan is, therefore, underway to capacitate road authorities across the country with basic equipment to reduce hiring costs.

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