Contribution: Better infrastructure is essential for better lives.
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Monday Fellow South African
Dear Fellow South African,
While many parts of the country continue to
experience poor delivery of basic services, South Africa has a good core
network of public infrastructure that is improving the lives of our citizens.
Our country consistently ranks highly on indices
published by the African Development Bank that evaluate the status of
transportation, electricity, ICT and water and sanitation infrastructure. South
Africa ranks in the top five countries in Africa with the best public
infrastructure.
This is important because infrastructure
development plays a key role in ensuring fast economic growth and alleviating
poverty. However for this
world-class infrastructure to continue to support our developmental goals, it
has to be properly, effectively and efficiently maintained. And decisions on
infrastructure investment have to respond to the growing need and upgraded
appropriately. Last week, I
attended the launch of a new phase of upgrades to the Vulindlela Bulk Water
Supply Scheme in KwaZulu-Natal, a water infrastructure project that mainly
services the uMgungundlovu and uMsunduzi municipalities. When the first phase of the scheme was commissioned 25
years ago, it was only servicing 100,000 people. That number has almost tripled
in the intervening years, putting a strain on the existing infrastructure
resources. Once the current upgrades are completed, approximately 350,000
residents will receive clean, quality water.
The Darvill wastewater treatment plant outside
Pietermaritzburg has also been upgraded and will now be able to treat up to 100
million litres a day and better service households, businesses and industries
in the municipality.
We have good quality infrastructure, but in far
too many instances it is not being properly maintained and upgraded. Last year,
the South African Institution of Civil Engineering gave the country’s social
infrastructure a D rating, with E being failed or failing. Passenger rail
scored particularly low, achieving an E.
We continue to witness the detrimental
consequences of failure to maintain public infrastructure. We are seeing
accidents, disease outbreaks and other tragedies that in a number of instances
have been associated with dilapidated infrastructure. The maintenance of public infrastructure is often the
responsibility of local government. It remains of concern that municipalities
are failing to spend conditional grants allocated to them for maintenance and
upgrades of infrastructure.
The National Treasury recently reported that
slightly more than half of the Municipal Infrastructure Grant was being spent
by municipalities. This grant is for upgrading and building new infrastructure
and rehabilitating existing infrastructure. At the last meeting of the President’s Coordinating
Council, in June, we agreed on greater accountability from municipalities that
consistently underspend on their conditional grant allocations. Part of the
problem is that municipalities, especially smaller municipalities, lack
implementation capacity. However,
there are municipalities that are spending conditional grants successfully and
timeously. For example, approximately 91% of funding allocated to
municipalities to fund reconstruction and rehabilitation after floods in the
Western Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal was spent by the respective
municipalities.
This illustrates that with the
necessary support, technical assistance, planning and coordination, the problem
of municipal underspending on public infrastructure can be overcome. The
Department of Cooperative Governance, National Treasury and national and
provincial government will continue to support municipalities to use their
budgets effectively and fulfil their responsibilities to the South African
people. Because of its vital
developmental function, we continue to prioritise investment in infrastructure
across government. Construction is underway on several bulk water, housing,
energy and roads projects. Together with better infrastructure maintenance, we
are determined that these investments will make a big difference in people’s
lives. When social infrastructure
is well-maintained not only do citizens benefit, but businesses are also
supported and the economy as a whole grows and develops.
With best regards,
His Cyril Ramaphosa
President Republic of South Africa.