Tanzania: Road Fund Board wants govt to diversify sources of funding

The Road Fund Board (RFB) has said that there is a need to look for alternative sources of road maintenance funding instead of depending on funds from petroleum products.

In its 2009/10 annual report it said one of the nine challenges facing the board particularly given the fact that many roads need maintenance, is lack of new sources of funding as motorists change from using petrol to biofuel.

Recent trends in the world oil market prices and the need to conserve environment has led to the search for alternative sources of fuel including biofuels.

According to the report, its operations for the year were good and the proportion of trunk and regional roads in good, fair and poor condition during the period was 66 percent, 29 percent, and 5 percent respectively.

The report said many roads need spot improvement just to keep them passable while most of their stretches are normally in poor condition.

“There is need to enhance use of low cost seals to some of the unpaved roads that experience higher levels of traffic,” the report further says.

“Though such seals require higher initial costs than gravel roads, they are actually cheaper when you consider the life cycle costs,” it says.

Another suggestion was to look for possible alternative sources of financing include Public Private Partnership (PPP) for road maintenance and vehicle inspection fee.

THE Roads Fund Board (RFB) mentioned other major challenges as backlog road maintenance work, maintaining unpaved roads, scouting for new sources of funds, revenue leakage and overloading vehicles.

The report said in a move to address the challenges, the board came up with a three-year strategic plan which ends this year.

The plan suggests that there is need to increase revenue collection by diversifying sources and adjusting the operational rates.

It also says there is need to monitor revenue collection and institute measures to plug leakage.

The board also plans to improve disbursement of funds to implementing agencies by monitoring distribution of funds, provide funds for road maintenance.

Improve performance and capacity of implementing agencies by strengthening capacity is another strategy, the board says. Under this strategy the RFB is supposed to sensitise involvement of communities to take part in road works.

The board also says that another strategy is to improve the RFB operations by strengthening capacity, internal control, education information and communication while instituting performance management systems.

Data received from TRA indicates that fuel exemptions increased from 1.103bn/- to 6.3bn/- during the 2004/5 and 2005/6 financial years respectively. Current estimates put fuel levy exemptions to about 23bn/-.

There are indications that not all the exempted entities use all the fuel solely for the intended purposes, the report said.

It recommended that Tanroads should improve planning by keeping in files inventory and condition data, as well as building drawings, design information and engineer's estimates.

The agency needs to improve on contract administration by confirming with guarantors, carrying out final inspection and issuing completion certificates, it said.

“Another recommendation is that quality control should be improved by ensuring proper finish of side drains, providing adequate vegetation control and better finish to concrete works. Works measurements should be on ground before payments are effected,” it said.

More training in the area of planning, contract administration and procurement is needed for local authority practitioners, the report said.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN