Own Correspondent|The Zimbabwe National Roads Authority, ZINARA, has sensationally revealed that close to $2 million may have been stolen by its collection staff at one tollgate in one month.

This was revealed by the new management, which came into office in September last year. The new team claims to have tackled corruption and theft and is using new technologies at the top gates to promote accountability.

Skyline tollgate along the Harare-Masvingo highway, which was notorious for theft and corruption, was upgraded by the new management, resulting in revenue collection jumping from $251 451 in December 2019 to $2 071 415 in January 2020.

At its 2020-2023 strategic meeting recently, Zinara’s acting finance director Mr Strauss Tembo said the administration had set a target collection of $1 billion.

“Zinara came up with innovative revenue collection strategies at its 2020-2023 strategy formulation session where the target for 2020 was set at $1,275 billion,” said Mr Tembo.

Mr Tembo said overall revenue collection had increased by 50 percent since September 2019 following radical revenue assurance strategies deployed at tollgates and other revenue centres.

He said they were also ridding the system of corrupt elements.

Zinara has removed the familiarity risk at tollgates by rotating staff and dismissing corrupt elements.

It has also restored revenue collection systems that had been vandalised.

Said Mr Tembo: “In order to further improve revenue assurance, Zinara will deploy the services of loss control officers and introduce tip-off anonymous to ensure corruption is nipped in the bud and revenue leaks are plugged.”

Zinara will be taking steps to stop tendencies by road users to bypass tollgate using side roads.