Huge backlogs in road infrastructure still remain a major challenge despite the progress being made, says Eastern Cape MEC for Roads and Public Works Thandiswa Marawu.

These backlogs are further compounded by floods that have wreaked havoc in the province in recent years, with devastating effects on the roads network. Delivering her Policy and Budget Speech 2014/15, Marawu said the situation is unlikely to improve in the near future, for the simple reason that it is further exacerbated by the shrinking of the fiscus allocated to the department.

“The situation has resulted in the department resorting to focusing primarily on the maintenance of the existing roads network, with very little hope of constructing new roads in the short-term. This has been reflected in our Annual Performance Plans targets over the last couple of years, including the current financial year where the targets for construction are zeros,” she said.

The 2014/5 budget allocation for transport infrastructure for the Eastern Cape is R1 887 112, a 0.3% decrease from last years’.

 

Road Asset Management System

Marawu said that the establishment of an integrated Road Asset Management System (RAMS) covering all 78 770km of provincial and local municipal roads in the province is close to fruition. The project involves the National Department of Transport, the Eastern Cape department of roads and all six district municipalities.

RAMS will help all local municipal areas identify, prioritise and plan municipal roads maintenance and upgrading projects within their municipality as well as assist each area in complying with Government Immovable Asset Management Act requirements. According to Marawu, the system will assist in planning provincial maintenance and upgrading projects in a holistic manner by incorporating traffic flows on provincial and municipal roads.

Through the project, 30 previously unemployed civil engineering graduates have also been employed and are being trained and given hands-on experience in various technical fields related to roads planning, design, maintenance and construction. At the conclusion of the project these civil engineering technicians and technologists will be deployed to assist district and local municipalities as part of this government’s commitment to building capacity at a local municipal level.

Linked to this project, Marawu’s department will this year finalise the road classification process for all municipal roads and institute a public participation process on the classification and mapping of all provincial and municipal roads.

 

Household Contractor Programme

The department has made significant strides in employing the poor to undertake minor road maintenance through the Household Contractor Programme. However, Marawu is concerned about the inadequate monitoring of these workers.

“We believe that there should be value added to the road asset that is being maintained, and we can achieve this by ensuring that there is tight supervision so that we do not see household contractors lying idle when they are supposed to perform productive work,” she said. To this end, her department will roll-out the deployment of 60 Grade 1 Contractors to supervise household contractors.

In addition to supervisory work, Grade 1 Contractors will ensure that household contractors get the necessary tools and inputs such as gravel in order to ensure that rural roads are maintained to acceptable standards.