KZN budgets R1,38 billion for road network

ED RICHARDSON KWAZULU NATAL MEC for transport Bheki Cele has made a strong plea for additional funding to ensure that the road and rail links between the province’s two harbours and the rest of the country are maintained. In his budget speech before the legislature recently, Cele said: “We dare not risk the collapse of our critical transport corridors due to under-budgeting. At the same time we must necessarily budget for the development of new transport corridors, which will provide access for resource poor communities and expose them to new investments. “This the Department is currently doing through its Community Access Roads and African Renaissance Road Upgrading Programmes. “However, we need to be very clear on the fact that our current budgets are inadequate to cope with the historical disinvestments in transport infrastructure during the last decades of apartheid as well as the spatial legacy of separate development planning.” He pointed out that KwaZulu/Natal had the two busiest ports in the country, Durban and Richards Bay, which together handle some 75% of South Africa’s cargo tonnage and account for 80% of the value of South Africa’s imports and exports. His department has budgeted R1,38 billion for the road network - R648 061 000 million for maintenance and R641327 000-million for construction. A further R114 500 000 million has been allocated to provide communities with local road access to public facilities such as clinics, hospitals, schools and transport networks. It has also budgeted R254 409 000 million for road safety and enforcement.