Bulawayo cries foul over paltry Zinara allocation

Bulawayo City councillors are crying foul over the paltry $899 000 allocated by Zimbabwe National Roads Administration (Zinara), saying the money was too little to repair, all the city's worn-out roads.

Speaking during a recent full council meeting, Ward 4 councillor Silas Chigora said the local authority might be forced to divert money reserved for other services towards servicing of roads.

"Zinara collects money from road users and it is that money that is supposed to be given to councils to repair and improve the state of roads in the country, but all local authorities are only allocated $10 million."

"Divide that by the number of councils in the country, each gets approximately $899 000 and that is far from enough considering the state of our roads," Chigora said.

"The matter should be looked into because roads are used by cars and its those cars that should repair them."

Ward 1 councillor Mlandu Ncube said given the council's shoestring budget for road maintenance, priority would be given to roads considered as badly worn out.

"At the moment we can only fix roads according to how critical their state is due to financial constraints," he said.