Cape Town - Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia de Lille says her department was looking forward to the Budget speech by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, to confirm the funding to enable the delivery of 95 bridges in the new financial year.
De Lille said given the pending commitment of the Budget from National Treasury, the Welisizwe bridges would be upscaled and rolled out in six provinces: Mpumalanga, the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State, Limpopo and the North West in the 2022/23 financial year.
“This programme has also been instrumental in providing jobs and on-the-job training to qualified artisans and professionals in the department,” she said.
De Lille made the statement when she addressed a post-State of the Nation Address (Sona) to unpack progress made in the past year and also shared some of the key areas their departments would take forward in 2022/23.
Delivering his Sona speech, President Cyril Ramaphosa said the Welisizwe Rural Bridges Programme would be upscaled to deliver 95 bridges a year from the current 14.
Ramaphosa said the SANDF was the implementing agent of the Welisizwe programme and had demonstrated the expertise of its engineers in bridge construction.
De Lille said the Welisizwe Rural Bridges Programme was implemented between her department, the Department of Defence and the provincial Transport and Public Works departments.
She said a number of bridges had been installed in the Eastern Cape and KZN in the past two years.
Four bridges have been completed in the Eastern Cape and 12 in KZN.
The minister said the Department of Defence had the capacity to deliver 95 bridges per year, hence the announcement by Ramaphosa.
De Lille said her department was in the process of recruiting 360 qualified artisans, 300 artisan trainees and engineering trainees from the participating provinces for the Welisizwe programme.
“Some these trainees are already in the department. The recruitment process will be concluded by 31 March 2022,” she said.
“Expanded Public Works Programme participants will be recruited from the community where the bridge is constructed,” she said.
Referring to Ramaphosa’s commitment that the rural roads programme would use labour-intensive methods to construct or upgrade 685 kilometres of rural road over the next three years, De Lille said the country’s road network was estimated at a total of 750 000km.
The minister said of the 750 000km, about 592 000km was gravel.
“The backlog of upgrading the entire gravel road network in South Africa amounts to R5.3 trillion.”
De Lille agreed with Ramaphosa that there was a need to incorporate labour-intensive methods in the designs of the gravel road upgrades projects in order to create jobs and decrease the unemployment rate in South Africa.
“We aim to upgrade at least 50% of rural roads in the next three years using block paving. The bricks used in the upgrading and maintenance of these rural roads will be sourced from local suppliers,” she said.
“The rural roads programme will cover mostly the rural provinces of the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, the North West and the Free State.
“Infrastructure South Africa and the National Department of Transport continue to work together with provinces on the rural roads to be upgraded,” the minister added.
Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, head of infrastructure and investment office in the Presidency, noted that Ramaphosa had made reference to the government introducing an innovative social infrastructure delivery mechanism to address issues that afflicted the delivery of school infrastructure.
Ramokgopa said the mechanism would address the speed, financing and funding, quality of delivery, mass employment and maintenance.
“The new delivery mechanism will introduce a Special Purpose Vehicle, working with prominent development finance institutions and the private sector, to deliver school education infrastructure,” he said.
Ramokgopa also said the pace of delivering social infrastructure was determined by the department’s capacity to implement the infrastructure programmes and the availability of funds for implementation.
“The new delivery mechanism will introduce a Special Purpose Vehicle, working with prominent country development finance institutions (DFIs), to deliver school education infrastructure with the Northern Cape and Eastern Cape provinces being the pilots.
“The Eastern Cape has 61 schools ready for construction at a cost of R3.7 billion, while the Northern Cape requires approximately R2.1bn to develop 28 schools.
“This innovative programme initiative will seek to create a private sector supported fund to accelerate school infrastructure roll-out across the country,” he said.
mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za
Political Bureau