News / National
Harare, Bulawayo council have capacity to reconstruct roads
15 Mar 2018 at 07:39hrs | Views
The Local Government, Public works and National Housing Minister July Moyo has said some local authorities such as the Harare, Bulawayo and Gweru have a capacity to reconstruct own roads.
He made the remarks when he was asked by senator Chief Musarrwa on government police on the potholed roads in cities.
"I thank Hon. Sen. Chief Musarurwa for such a pertinent question on Government policy regarding the maintenance of roads in urban areas. These roads are full of potholes and highly inaccessible. The Government stance is that local authorities such as those in Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru, Mutare et cetera have the mandate of constructing and maintaining their roads. Government puts in place levies so that monies created can be used in the maintenance of the roads," Moyo said.
"In urban areas, local authorities collect rates and the rates are meant for maintaining the infrastructure and some of the people who are looked after are the residents of that area. Local authorities should construct storm water drains in these areas but drainages are connected to the roads. As a result, we are saying local authorities should collect the levies for these roads."
Moyo said the second aspect is that Government created a levy after noticing that anybody who travels on these roads is destroying the roads.
"Hence, there are two forms of collecting funds. The first one is the licence fees which are collected by ZINARA and these funds are rechanneled to these local authorities. The second levy which is collected by the State is that whenever motorists pay for fuel, there is a tax levy in that which is given to these authorities and the funds is given to the Ministry of Roads and also local authorities in both urban and rural areas. These are referred to as road authorities and they benefit from this levy. We have realised that most of our local authorities, when they have received these levies from the State, instead of maintaining the infrastructure, they have been using these levies in paying the salaries. We have noticed that all the 92 local authorities in both urban and rural, we have been empowering them on how they can collect levy and also how they can maintain and refurbish these roads," he said.
He made the remarks when he was asked by senator Chief Musarrwa on government police on the potholed roads in cities.
"I thank Hon. Sen. Chief Musarurwa for such a pertinent question on Government policy regarding the maintenance of roads in urban areas. These roads are full of potholes and highly inaccessible. The Government stance is that local authorities such as those in Harare, Bulawayo, Gweru, Mutare et cetera have the mandate of constructing and maintaining their roads. Government puts in place levies so that monies created can be used in the maintenance of the roads," Moyo said.
Moyo said the second aspect is that Government created a levy after noticing that anybody who travels on these roads is destroying the roads.
"Hence, there are two forms of collecting funds. The first one is the licence fees which are collected by ZINARA and these funds are rechanneled to these local authorities. The second levy which is collected by the State is that whenever motorists pay for fuel, there is a tax levy in that which is given to these authorities and the funds is given to the Ministry of Roads and also local authorities in both urban and rural areas. These are referred to as road authorities and they benefit from this levy. We have realised that most of our local authorities, when they have received these levies from the State, instead of maintaining the infrastructure, they have been using these levies in paying the salaries. We have noticed that all the 92 local authorities in both urban and rural, we have been empowering them on how they can collect levy and also how they can maintain and refurbish these roads," he said.
Source - Byo24News
