By Correspondent
Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume has accused the Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (ZINARA) of employing a formula from hell in the allocation of funds.
Mafume said the formula is complex, doesn’t make much sense and has been derailing any road rehabilitation projects by the Harare authorities.
“I was speaking to the RBZ Governor saying that the formula for allocation by ZINARA is a formula from hell.
“We have the most motorists in the world but for some bone throwing, dice throwing, thumb sucking formula that ZINARA uses we get less than what we contribute dramatically and not proportionally,” Mafume said.
Mafume said he had engaged with ZINARA officials to get an understanding of their formula but had been left confused.
“I had a meeting with the (ZINARA) Chief Executive at some point in his office.
“I engaged with the mathematics but I came out worse because I could not understand it.
“We have 800 000 cars if each one pays US$10 we give you US$8 million isn’t it?
“We expect you to give us back maybe US$6 million after you have taken your admin fee of 10 or 20 percent.
“Life should be that simple.
“Yet, I don’t know what happens to it, it goes in and they have a complex formula, the eat the whole of the money and bring 20% of the money to us.
“That leaves me bewildered and we end up losing yet all these cars are using Harare roads and depreciating them and we can’t build new roads.
Council To Take Zinara To Court
As a resolution Mafume said it would be best if Council went to court against ZINARA.
“Maybe we need to go to court for this and the Environmental Committee needs to assist us to really see how we can attack this bone throwing formula by ZINARA because it’s not helping the residents”, he said.
Council has been at loggerheads with ZINARA for some time with counter-accusations from the latter.
ZINARA doesn’t do road works but is the collective authority mandated to then allocate the respective local authorities.
However it has been accused of playing politics by depriving opposition controlled Councils of enough funds as a way of sabotaging them.