Roads infrastructure key to economic growth
Isaac Pinielo | Friday February 10, 2017 12:06
However, this seems to be an almost impossible undertaking for the Roads Department which is faced with an increase in the maintenance backlog, as current levels of expenditure are not sufficient to address the needs of the road network.
Although authorities recognise the importance of a functional, integrated road network, funding is often a problem.
“We had embarked on a massive road maintenance programme in the country but the major drawback was lack of funding,” roads director, Kgakgamatso Kalasi told BusinessWeek. A roads condition survey of 2014 recommended an ideal budget of P3.08 billion per annum using the recommended multi-year preventative and rehabilitation plans for the next 10 years. However, there is still a shortfall needed to keep the road network properly maintained. The Roads Department, which falls under the Ministry of Transport and Communications, recently indicated that infrastructure condition is declining with more than 10% of paved roads in poor and very poor condition. During the 2016/17 financial year, the department received P234 million for maintenance purposes, which was augmented by P570 million from the Road Fund Levy. This makes the total maintenance funds to be P804 million.
In addition, an amount of P843 million was allocated for roads development including projects under the Economic Stimulus Programme (ESP). Kalasi said the plan is to carry out maintenance on the entire public highway network under their jurisdiction, which is approximately 18,000km, including 7,600km of gravel roads, 6,400km of paved roads, and the rest being earth roads.
“Due to budgetary constraints, we hence annually target on average, around 400km for maintenance on paved roads re-seals or overlays and 7,000km for gravel road,” Kalasi said.
On average, she added, approximately 600km of gravel roads and 4,000km of earth roads are maintained by department’s in-house teams annually.
The director also noted that the funds allocated for road maintenance in the 2015/16 financial year were P353 million, which was reduced to P234 million in 2016/17 period.
In addition, she said the Road Fund Levy collected P715 million in the previous financial year, 20% of which was allocated to Local Government for road maintenance purposes. This leaves P570 million in the department’s coffers, she said. The levy collects 80 thebe per litre of fuel purchased.
A few years ago, the roads department procured 21 new road motor graders at a cost of approximately P53 million which was said to have been funded from the Road Fund levy. Meanwhile, the cost of road maintenance seems to be an issue for many countries in the southern African region as a whole. Recently Southern African Development Community (SADC) indicated that while member states recognise the importance of a road network, funding is often diverted into other sectors.
“Likewise, significant funds have previously been put into the road network, but were inefficiently managed by governments in many member states,” SADC said.
It further noted that with traditional top-down approaches to funding for repairs and construction proving ineffective, SADC is currently exploring new systems of funding, including public-private partnerships and user-pays principles.