The tonnage of freight transported on South Africa’s roads grew by almost 40% since 2003, signalling that urgent attention is needed for the upgrading and maintenance of the country’s roads.

On rural roads and rail, the increase was above 80%.

In the 8th State of Logistics Survey (conducted by the CSIR, the University of Stellenbosch and Imperial Logistics) Hans Ittmann, a consultant who works on the survey, states that infrastructure development is a critical enabler to economic growth.

“The logistics infrastructure of a country – which includes roads, railways, ports, pipelines and airports – forms the backbone for this growth,” he writes in the survey that was released on Wednesday in Johannesburg.

Ittmann highlighted that the freight transported on the country’s main corridors, both on rail and on road, grew by 39.5% over the period 2003 to 2008.

“In contrast, the growth on rural roads and rail was 85%. In tonne-kilometre this growth was 18.5% and 72.7% respectively,” Ittmann writes.

“This raises the question whether sufficient attention is given to non-corridor infrastructure.”

In his state of the nation address President Jacob Zuma announced a massive infrastructure development plan. In the speech he highlighted 17 projects with about R3.2 trillion needed to complete these projects.

According to the 2012 National Budget Review the projects earmarked for completion with regard to transport is the following:

1. An R80 billion passenger railways project (through PRASA) to acquire a new fleet of rolling stock over 20 years in which procurement has commenced.

2. National road improvements (through Sanral) of R45.4 billion. This will include maintenance improvements, refurbishment and new roads and is an ongoing programme.

3. Rolling stock and locomotives for freight rail (through Transnet) of R7.7bn where procurement is also underway.

4. Provincial road improvements (through the Provincial Department of Roads) of R25.5bn for the maintenance, refurbishment and new roads over the next three years which is a work in progress.

5. The Ngqura container terminal for R7.9 billion to improve the port capacity by 800 000 units, the first phase completed in 2012.

It has been well-documented that South Africa has a backlog for the maintenance and upgrading of its road infrastructure. For maintenance alone the backlog is R149 billion, according to the recently resigned CEO of Sanral, Nazir Alli.

The R25.5 billion highlighted in the budget for these non-corridor, rural networks, is therefore only a small percentage of what is needed for the proper upkeep and upgrading of these roads.

According to the Municipal Infrastructure Investment Framework for South Africa (Round 7), conducted by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs and the Development Bank of Southern Africa, 75% of access roads in rural and urban areas are in poor condition.

Source: moneyweb

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