Hilary Muza 
IT is one thing to have a law that lays out clear procedures and guidelines on development and maintenance of road infrastructure, and another where leaders, administrators and managers take little interest in making use of the law to create internationally-competitive road infrastructure. 
I say this with particular reference to how the Roads Act [Chapter 13.18] has not been taken full advantage of or, to say it in another way, has been neglected, when it comes to the issue of construction and maintenance of our road infrastructure across the board.
In the southern African region, we are notorious for having the most dilapidated road network.
Our highways are a death trap as they are now known for being the cause of countless road accidents, some of which result in death. Some of the roads built during the colonial era have endured but due to time, and lack of maintenance have taken a heavy toll and all we notice is serious apathy on the part of road administration authorities to make our roads user friendly and attractive.
We should not forget our urban roads that are a total disgrace. The quality of vehicles that our politicians drive on these battered and pothole-filled roads are not commensurate with the infrastructure.
Instead of feeling shame and getting jolted into action to make sure our roads are well-maintained, it would appear that they have now accepted that it is normal to navigate these rough roads.
Yet the responsibility of true leadership or management is to find solutions to problems, if you are a leader or manager and you keep finding excuses instead of solutions, then you will be failing in your role.
Over the past years, no one among the role players has taken full responsibility for the awkward state of our roads. Government blames local authorities while on the other hand, local authorities point fingers at government and the Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara).
A critical perusal of the relevant statute thrusts all responsibility for road construction and maintenance be they national roads, urban roads or rural roads on Zinara.
The parastatal is supervised by the minister Transport & Infrastructure Development, and must it therefore, follow that if this organisation fails on its mandate, the government official responsible for its neglect of duty would be the minister.
Coming back to the issue of law, the relevant Act establishes Zinara through Section 6 of Part III and it specifically provides that this organisation shall be a corporate body and shall be capable of suing and being sued in its corporate name and performing all acts that other corporate bodies perform.
Zinara’s main mandate is to manage the road fund which holds funds that it would have collected from roads users. It has several other functions, one of which is to fix road-user charges in consultation with the Finance minister.
One such other function is to allocate and disburse to road authorities, funds for road construction and maintenance in terms of the rules that they would have prescribed.
A road authority is defined in the Act to mean either, the department of roads, a rural district council, a municipality, town council or local board. It is these five are sole recipients of funding from the road fund.
It looks like Zinara has a huge responsibility on its shoulders because each and every rural district council or urban council or municipality looks up to it for funding for purposes of road construction and maintenance.
I must not forget to mention that one of the key functions is to provide “a stable, adequate, secure and sustainable source of funding for maintenance works in Zimbabwe and to ensure the equitable allocation of its monies between road authorities for the purpose of maintenance works”.
Section 15 provides that the Road Fund shall be applied to the payment of a grant to road authorities for the purpose of meeting the whole or any part of the expenses of implementing routine and periodic road maintenance works.
Road authorities are required to submit annual programmes and budgets to Zinara every financial year. The budget must show the expenditure which the road authority proposes to incur in the implementation of its programs during that financial year.
Such budgets and programmes shall be reviewed and once approved, the national roads maintenance work schedule shall be published in the gazette, newspapers and other media so as to inform the public of the national road maintenance programme.
I am yet to see Zinara comply with this important clause that enhances transparency in national road administration.
Section 15 subsection 2 reiterates that, the board shall allocate grants in such manner as will ensure an equitable distribution of the available funds between the department of roads and the local road authorities and where appropriate, the administration main determine priority works to which grants may be applied in a particular year.
The Road Fund mops its funds from collections on toll gates that are dotted around some of the major highways as well as through motor vehicle licensing. It would appear that these are the two methods available to the fund.
Although, local authorities expect funding from this organisation, we are yet to see toll gates being constructed in urban and/or district localities.
The question then becomes, whether or not the funds being collected are sufficient for the task at hand.
If not, it would be high time that urban toll gates be introduced so as to raise more funding for road infrastructure.
Muza is a Harare-based legal practitioner. He writes in his personal capacity.
