ZINARA audit report- what the MPs said- Edwin Mushoriwa

After having taken the money from ZINARA, the directors of these companies would then go on to liquidate their companies. We cannot allow people to benefit from public resources. People that we think are business people are in reality great looters siphoning money from the unsuspecting public.

If you look at the contracts that ZINARA had with Univen, you may be aware Univen now has got a contract on tollgates, vehicle licences, road transit and fuel levy. What they simply did was to come up with a laptop and software and ask Government to give them close to 21% of the revenues. Hon Raidza mentioned 16%, but it is 16% of the gross which in reality ZINARA has not been getting sufficient resources. No wonder if you look at each and every road, you see potholes.  Sometimes we blame politicians that they are looting but there are certain people that are not elected, people that are hiding in offices, those are the greatest looters. One of the contracts with Univen in terms of supplying graders, it was the ZINARA executives who were witnesses to Univen. If you have such a scenario where you have your directors who are supposed to represent the public and safeguarding the purse appear to be witnesses and agents of the other party to the contract, then that tells you there is actually disaster.

The Hon Minister of Transport needs to come to this august House within a specified period that is said in the report to simply say is ZINARA the best way for us to go in terms road maintenance. I am saying this, given the devolution agenda that we now have. It is now time that we need to say let the funds be devolved and let local authorities collect vehicle licences. Allow ZINARA to deal with a few issues like tollgates, road levy and road transit fees. Allow vehicle licences to be collected by City of Harare, City of Bulawayo and all these other Rural District Councils so that the funds could then go into road development. I would appreciate a situation where inasmuch as Harare has got the majority of vehicles, it is better to say every local authority like Harare will set aside a percentage that could also go to help those councils that do not have huge volumes of traffic.

The number of vehicles we have on the road are massive and if local authorities are allowed to collect those funds and levies they would be a lot of development in terms of roads. Children that were born 20 years ago in Dzivaresekwa – some of them do not understand and do not know that some of their roads were once tarred. They just see dust roads. This is unfair and wrong Mr. Speaker Sir. We have got a fund that was being abused which should have been channeled towards road maintenance.

I want to urge the august House to support this report so that the due process of law takes its course. I thank you.

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