Transport and Public Works
How do he and his Department plan to address and turn around the increasing percentages between the 2017/18 and 2018/19 financial years of surfaced and gravel roads classified as “very poor” and “poor” as illustrated by Tables 28 and 29 in his Department’s Annual Report for 2018/19?
The Department has multiple initiatives to address the roads that are classified as poor and very poor. These initiatives span the planning, programming, design and implementation of various projects for periodic maintenance, rehabilitation and upgrading of both the surfaced and gravel road networks.
In view of the current Medium- Term Expenditure Framework Budget the backlog of poor and very poor surfaced and gravel roads is however not expected to be turned around in the short to medium term.
As indicated in the Road Asset Management Plan (RAMP 2019/20), various turn around strategies have been developed for different funding scenarios, but to fully address the backlog and to maintain the total road infrastructure network to an appropriate level of service, substantial additional funding would be required, as is evident from the RAMP 2019/20 analysis.
