Mera defies law, motorists endure bad roads
Failure by Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera) to remit road maintenance levy collections to Roads Fund Administration (RFA) has put motorists on the receiving end as they endure driving on potholed roads.
Under the law, Mera collects a levy from every litre of petrol and diesel sold at the pump on behalf of RFA to finance maintenance and, in some cases, construction of roads.
“The sums of money raised by way of the levies imposed by the Minister under subsection (1) shall be collected and disbursed to the relevant institutions,” read Section 38 (3) of the Liquid Fuels and Gas Act of 2004.
Once collected, Mera is expected to remit the funds within 52 days, but The Nation has established that the authority has not remitted since November last year, in the process denying RFA access to 80 percent of its road maintenance resources.
In an interview yesterday, RFA spokesperson Masauko Mngwaluko confirmed that Mera’s last remittance was made in November 2023.
He said: “We would like to request you to contact Mera and seek clarification as the reasons for failing to remit fuel levy to RFA. It would also be good to check with them when they will start remitting the fuel levy.”
Both Mera spokesperson Fi tina Khonje and boardchairperson Steven Kamphasa had not responded to our questionnaire on the issue by press time at 9pm.
Mera’s delayed remittance of the road maintenance levy has also not skipped the attention of Parliament, which previously summoned the authority’s management to explain. However, not much progress has been made.
Information sourced from RFA website shows that the fuel level constitutes 85 percent of all levies the fund collects for road maintenance.
During the 2023/24 financial year, RFA’s total revenue was K85.3 billion out of which K70.1 billion was from the road maintenance levy in the fuel pump price build up. Tollgates revenue amounted to K8 billion.
The 2022 RFA Annual Report for the year ending March 31 showed that in that year the contribution of the road maintenance levy was at 85 percent and also outlined plans to introduce more tollgates to broaden the revenue base.
According to this report, effective October 2021 the rates for fuel levy were at K126.54 per litre of petrol and K123.13 per litre of diesel.
Reads the report: “On average fuel levy is receivable 52 days after fuel importation. However, during the year, this has continued to be exceeded… where over 60 days fuel levy balance as at 31st March 2022 had grown to K14.7 billion.”
To underscore the importance of fuel levy, the Malawi National Transport Masterplan for 2017 -2037 describes the levy as legally ring-fenced.
“The fuel levy, collected by MERA, is routed directly to the RFA’s account. The overall allocation for road maintenance is, therefore, non-discretionary with funding being legally ring-fenced. Thus, the funding source for road maintenance is sustainable,” reads the master plan.
The Roads Authority Survey (2017) shows Malawi’s classified public road network is 15 451 kilometres (km) of which 4 312 km (28 percent) are paved and 11 139 km or 72 percent are “unpaved and mostly of earth standard”.
