The DA in Mpumalanga calls on the Public Works, Roads, and Transport MEC, Mandla Ndlovu, to set aside a budget dedicated to the maintenance and repair of road infrastructure.
In its 2021/22 Annual Report, the Department revealed that 58% of its road construction equipment was in poor condition because of a lack of maintenance and repairs. This leads to dilapidated roads which are continuing to become a threat to road users across the province.
In his department’s budget speech on Tuesday this week, MEC Ndlovu mentioned that they budgeted slightly over R2,4 billion for transport infrastructure. The DA will request the MEC to use some of that money to repair and maintain the damaged 58% of road construction infrastructure.
The department’s 2023/24 Annual Performance Plan revealed that between 2019 and 2022 all paved and unpaved roads in the province deteriorated substantially:
- Roads rated as very good deteriorated from 9% in 2019 to 0% in 2022;
- Roads rated as good, deteriorated from 25% in 2019 to 3% in 2022;
- 54% and 28% of paved roads were in a very poor and poor condition respectively; and
- Whilst 82% of all unpaved was in a poor condition.
This neglect of road construction equipment is also concerning taking into consideration the fact that the department itself revealed recently that Mpumalanga has a huge road maintenance backlog of R26 billion. So, if they fail to fix and maintain the existing road construction equipment – it means also they can’t afford to buy new equipment at a maintenance backlog of R26 billion.
Taking the above into consideration and being cognisant of the work which needs to be undertaken to bring our roads on par, we cannot have situations wherein the majority or 58% of our road construction equipment is in a poor condition due to a lack of maintenance and repairs.
The DA has since written to the MEC requesting a detailed plan of how he is going to address the road maintenance backlog in the province and also urging investment in the broken road construction equipment.