Story by Kenias Chivuzhe
THE Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development is harnessing the Public Entities and Corporate Governance Act to maximise on the available resources, with public private partnerships being explored to broaden funding models.
Speaking on the sidelines of an oversight meeting in Mutare this Thursday, the Corporate Governance Unit and the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Infrastructural Development acknowledged the transport sector’s positive strides in conforming to the corporate governance policy.
“We have seen a significant increase in the compliance levels. When we started doing these surveys, entities compliance level was about 60% and jumped to 73% in 2022. When it comes to individual entities in the transport sector, most of them are above 75%. Research shows that there is a positive co-relation between high level compliance and performance of the entities, thereby enhancing service delivery,” Secretary for Corporate Governance Unit, Mr Allen Choruma said.
Transport and Infrastructural Development Portfolio Committee Chairperson Honourable Knowledge Kaitano added, “There is remarkable improvement with regards to cooperate governance compliance. We have asked the ministry to engage more and more private partners who want to partner government so that we can quickly built our infrastructure to reduce the burden of the treasure. We are happy that government is heeding the call to take up PPP funding models.”
Manicaland Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution Advocate Misheck Mugadza is convinced adherence to corporate governance policies will speed-up infrastructural development programmes in the province.
“We believe that this sixth addition of the line ministry of public entities corporate governance oversight meeting will bring about a positive shift on the corporate governance fronts towards enhancing public service delivery. Implementation of corporate governance policies will improve performance of entities under the ministry. It will promote result driven budgets.”
The Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development Honourable Felix Mhona spoke on the need to prioritise corporate governance issues and infrastructure development projects.
“By adhering to corporate governance standards in our public entities, we boost performance and make good provision of goods and services to the public. We should endeavour to implement transparent and accountable stewardship regarding economic, social and environmental performance of our entities for good returns.
“As we engage, we should applaud government, under the leadership of President Emmerson Mnangagwa for recognising the importance of corporate governance, and putting in place appropriate constitutional and legislative frameworks for its practice and implementation. We have Birchenough- Murambinda Road and Mt Selinda Chipinge roads which are among an emotional roads we are constructing. We are in the process to construct another Birchenough bridge that will carry huge tonnage. We are also finalising logistics to rehabilitate Mutare-Masvingo Road,” said the Minister.
It emerged plans are also afoot to rehabilitate the Mutare railway line and link Nyazura and Mvuma while agreements and logistics to construct the Christmas Pass By-Pass Road and Forbes Boarder Post are nearing completion.
