Acting Zinara chief executive officer Mr Gilfern Moyo
confirmed the development in Gweru yesterday.
Mr Moyo was addressing a Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption
Commission (Zacc) — Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) roundtable
dialogue and training workshop for Zinara integrity committee members.
To enhance transparency Zinara with technical assistance
from Zacc has set up an integrity committee to strengthen its systems in the
fight against corruption.
Mr Moyo said Zinara is weeding out corrupt employees
following a scandal at Flamingo tollgate where several employees were caught
stealing.
“At Flamingo toll gate in Gweru, we were faced with a theft
scandal involving millions of dollars. Seven cashiers were dismissed after they
were found guilty of the counts they were facing. Eight of them resigned before
the internal process commenced while two were acquitted at the end of the
internal process,” he said.
Mr Moyo said it was unfortunate that because of corruption,
even the extended families of the employees’ source of income had been
disrupted.
He commended Zacc for having alerted the road
administration of the theft that was taking place at the tollgate.
“Zinara instituted thorough investigations after receiving
a tip-off from Zacc last year that some employees stationed at the Flamingo
tollgate in Gweru were abusing the Zinara prepaid cards. That is the
partnership we are looking for and that is why we have the integrity committee
in place. We don’t condone corruption,” said Mr Moyo.
He said Zinara’s sole business now is collecting and
disbursing funds. Mr Moyo said road authorities who include urban and rural
councils, District Development Fund (DDF) and the department of roads were now
handling contracts.
“These submit their annual work plans and we fund their
plans. We collect and disburse funds and our source of funding is toll fees
from tollgates, abnormal load fees that are administered by the Vehicle
Inspection Department, among others,” he said.
Mr Moyo said Zinara was in the process of computerising its
operations so that they remove human interface which is prone to abuse.
“We are beefing up the ICT department, we have installed
CCTV at tollgates but at times we are shocked to find some disconnected at
tollgates. Reason given is that when there is a power outage, they fail to get
them running. Statistics have shown that where CCTV is not functioning or where
there is manual tolling system, revenue inflows plummet drastically and that is
why we need to computerise operations,” he said.
Mr Moyo said Zinara has set up a full-fledged risk and loss
control department to work closely with law enforcement agencies in tracking
all reported cases of corruption within the organisation. Chronicle
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