Zinara- The Zimbabwe National Road Administration

The Zimbabwe National Road Administration (ZINARA) is a body corporate established in 2002 through an Act of Parliament (Roads Act, Chapter 13:18). The body which was established in 2002 has prioritised the enhancement of good road network system throughout the country.

The mandate of ZINARA) is to fix, collect, disburse road user charges and mobilise revenue for roads development and maintenance. It also encompasses the monitoring of such funds that would have been disbursed for road maintenance to road authorities. Furthermore, ZINARA assists road authorities in making annual or multi-year road maintenance rolling plans and approves such plans. The entity also assists the Minister in setting maintenance, design, construction and technical standards and to monitor adherence to such  

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standards by road authorities. The organisation also performs any other function that may be conferred or imposed on the Road Administration in terms of the Roads Act (13:18) or any other enactment.

Growth of ZINARA
At its establishment in 2002, ZINARA was not immediately capacitated to operate independently; hence ZINARA’s business was being administered under its parent Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development. The organisation then had less than 15 employees most of whom were seconded from the parent Ministry.

ZINARA then started streamlining and extending its operations to optimise its mandate. A new regional office in Bulawayo was opened to cater for the Southern Region especially on technical and administrative issues. This also saw expansion of the technical department resulting in an increase in staff.

During this time, most revenue collection was being done by agents appointed by ZINARA with the blessing of the parent Ministry.

Tolling Fees
These were introduced in 2009 and were being collected by the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority - ZIMRA (which had capacity to collect at that time). ZINARA took over collection of toll fees in 2013 after a major computerisation project. At takeover, the entity also took over staff (300 employees) from ZIMRA that were employed to collect the fees.

Vehicle Licence Fees
These fees were collected by Local Authorities (Rural District Councils and Urban Councils) who also had capacity to collect at that time. Following a decision by government, ZINARA took over collection of these fees in 2009 and had to beef up its staff () after opening provincial collection offices

Fuel Levy
Since its inception, this was collected by National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NOCZIM). However, it is now being collected by National Oil Infrastructure Company of Zimbabwe (NOIC)

Transit Fees, Overload and Abnormal Load Fees
Since its inception, this has always been collected by Vehicle Inspectorate Department (VID), a department under the parent Ministry, due to its nature and geographical location. ZINARA also recruited key staff () to assist VID with the computerisation of collections in 2014.

To date, ZINARA has a staff compliment of about 400 employees and has a presence of eleven (11) offices in seven (7) provinces of Zimbabwe