The Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (Zinara) plans
to collect $1,275 billion this year from tollgates, vehicle licensing, road
transit fees, overload fees and fuel levy after the new management plugged
revenue leaks.
The money is to be spent on maintaining and extending the
road network, with only a modest percentage retained to cover administrative
costs.
The new management, which came into office in September
last year, has tackled corruption and theft and is using new technologies to
promote accountability.
Skyline tollgate along the Harare-Masvingo highway, which
was notorious for theft and corruption, was upgraded by the new management,
resulting in revenue collection jumping from $251 451 in December 2019 to $2 071
415 in January 2020.
At its 2020-2023 strategic meeting recently, Zinara’s
acting finance director Mr Strauss Tembo said the administration had set a
target collection of $1 billion.
“Zinara came up with innovative revenue collection
strategies at its 2020-2023 strategy formulation session where the target for
2020 was set at $1,275 billion,” said Mr Tembo.
“Major revenue drivers will be pinned on strategic
alliances with the Zimbabwe Republic Police, Univern, Vehicle Inspectorate
Department and (Harare) City Parking for licensing and toll fees compliance.
Further revenue assurance will be buttressed through the introduction of an
integrated point-of-sale system at all revenue centres for real time revenue
accounting.
“More-so, process transformation strategies will be
deployed on transit fees, which will see the ease of doing business encouraging transiting haulage trucks to use the Zimbabwe route.
The road administrator has introduced spot checks at tollgates and other
revenue halls.”
Mr Tembo said overall revenue collection had increased by
50 percent since September 2019 following radical revenue assurance strategies
deployed at tollgates and other revenue centres.
He said they were also ridding the system of corrupt
elements. Zinara has removed the familiarity risk at tollgates by rotating
staff and dismissing corrupt elements.
It has also restored revenue collection systems that had
been vandalised.
Said Mr Tembo: “In order to further improve revenue
assurance, Zinara will deploy the services of loss control officers and
introduce tip-off anonymous to ensure corruption is nipped in the bud and
revenue leaks are plugged.”
Zinara will be taking steps to stop tendencies by road
users to bypass tollgate using side roads. Herald
0 comments:
Post a Comment