The Mpumalanga Government has decided to cut the Province’s road infrastructure budget despite the fact that bad roads harm tourism in the province. Mpumalanga gets much of its revenue from tourism and the coal haulage.
According to the recent budget from the Provincial Department of Public Works, Roads and Transport, the transport infrastructure budget has decreased significantly from the adjusted appropriation of R2.511 billion in 2019/2020 to R2.083 billion in 2020/2021.
Roads in the province have deteriorated considerably over the past couple of years. The road networks in Thaba Chweu, Govan Mbeki, eMalahleni, Emakhazeni and Chief Albert Luthuli local municipalities are ridden with potholes that cause severe damage to cars, pose severe risk to road safety and are also a major deterrent to tourism.
The Panorama Route tourist attraction is the most affected by bad roads. This particular route runs through the Blyde River Canyon, Sabie, Lone Creek Waterfalls, Mac Mac Falls and God’s Window. These are the major tourist attractions in the province. Unfortunately tour operators are always complaining of potholes, gravel roads and bad toilet infrastructure along this route. This harms tourism and derails job creation in these areas.
Acknowledging the potential that tourism has on the economy, especially in a province with a lot of tourist attractions, we should be promoting tourism and ensuring that the roads leading to these sites are in a good condition. However; in reality these routes are often filled with potholes which span many kilometres.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) opposes the decrease of the budget that will cause the number of square kilometers of surface roads rehabilitated in coal haulage and tourism networks is to decrease from 158 to 116.
The decreasing budget in transport infrastructure further decreases the following outputs by the Department:
- Number of square meters of surface roads resealed from 1 231 700 to 593 368
- Number of kilometers of gravel roads from 160 to 128
- Number of square meters of blacktop patching from 130 000 to 62 558
- Number of gravel roads bladed from 24 150 to 14 150.
The DA will be engaging with the Department in the form of written questions and personal engagements on the above for them to prioritise fixing the tourism routes and the coal haulage to make it easy for tourists to visit our province and for businesses to want to invest. Investment means more revenue and jobs for Mpumalanga.