Manuel commits to infrastructure development

2 Mar 2001 - By Staff reporter

Comments | 0

FINANCE MINISTER Trevor Manuel's Budget focuses on export growth and investment. Infrastructure development is also high on the agenda, as Ed Richardson reports. See also page 9

Manuel commits
to infrastructure
development

GOVERNMENT IS focusing on roads and other infrastructure in its plans to create a more efficient economy.
Announcing funding for a number of projects, finance minister Trevor Manuel told Parliament last week by setting aside substantial supplementary resources for investment and maintenance, we seek to broaden access to opportunities, lower the costs of transport and communication and improve standards of living in poor communities.
In implementing this investment programme, Government will also contribute directly to the creation of jobs, he says.
Budgeted items include: R85 million in 2001/02 and R100 million in 2002/03 for repairs to flood-damaged infrastructure of national departments, R1,2 billion for rehabilitation of flood-damaged provincial infrastructure, of which R600 million is expected to be spent in 2001/02, R120 million in 2001/02 for short-term poverty relief measures, including interventions in response to cholera outbreaks, amounts of R300 million in 2002/03 and R313,5 million in 2003/04 for targeted HIV/Aids interventions, an amount of R3,75 billion for provincial infrastructure spending over the next three years - road construction and maintenance, school building, hospitals and clinics and rural development, and R2,5 billion for infrastructure projects of national departments over the next three years.
Of the supplementary amounts available to national departments over the next three years for infrastructure, R100 million is for the refurbishment of SA Rail Commuter Corporation rolling stock; and R50 million will go to complete the new Lubombo road linking northern KwaZulu-Natal, Swaziland and Mozambique.