HARARE- The Zimbabwe National Road Authority (ZINARA) on Monday confirmed losing US$74 500 to car dealer, Duly’s Motors in 2017, after paying for motor vehicles that were not delivered.

According to the Auditor General, Zinara is yet to receive vehicles paid for as far back as 2017 worth US$74.500 and a transformer worth $3 720 was also not delivered.

Appearing before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Public Accounts, Zinara chief executive officer Nkosinathi Ncube said Duly’s did not deliver vehicles because it claimed the funds paid to them was inadequate even though the roads authority had transferred the full United States Dollar amount.

“The reason is that a bank transfer was made to Duly’s through CBZ Bank then CBZ on their transfer to Duly’s, there was loss of value. According to Duly’s, the value that was transferred to them was different from the value of the motor vehicles hence they did not deliver because the funds they were given were inadequate but the money that was debited to Duly’s, we paid in USD but the bank debited RTGs,” he said.

He said the transaction happened during the period when the country transitioned from USD to the local ZWL currency.

“The transfer from our bank to the bank of Duly’s is where it came as a RTGS transaction. That has been the bone of contention between the two banks,” he said.

Zinara also lost money after paying for a transformer which was also not delivered.

“The supplier for the transformer cannot be located. It was not the first time to supply ZINARA, there was history,” he said.

The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Public Accounts tasked the ZINARA Board to deal with corporate governance and irregularities flagged by a forensic report by accounting firm Grant Thornton such as procurement violations, tender irregularities and financial mismanagement.

Committee chair Kuwadzana MP Charlton Hwende said the committee would get to the bottom of the murky tender deals.

“The problem that we have with suppliers like these is that they are supplying various government departments doing the same thing. We have a lot of people doing this and we want to get to the bottom of this,” he said.