President Cyril Ramaphosa has called on municipalities to spend the budgets allocated to them to help maintain the deteriorating public infrastructure of Mzansi cities. Ramaphosa warned that neglecting infrastructure maintenance can have detrimental consequences that could lead to disease outbreaks, accidents and other tragedies that could be associated with dilapidated infrastructure.

RANKED TOP FIVE

Ramaphosa said in his weekly newsletter that South Africa ranks among the top five countries in the continent when it comes to public infrastructure. He said while many parts of the country continue to experience poor service delivery, South Africa has a good core network of public infrastructure that is improving the lives of the 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," he said.

The president said 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," he said. Last week, Ramaphosa visited the launch of a new phase of upgrades of the Vulindlela Bulk Water Supply, a water infrastructure project that mainly services the uMgungundlovu and uMsunduzi municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal. "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," Ramaphosa said.

UPGRADED INFRASTRUCTURE 

He said 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 the 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. "The maintenance of public infrastructure is often the responsibility of the local government. It remains of concern that municipalities are failing to spend conditional grants allocated to them for maintenance and upgrades of infrastructure," Ramaphosa said.

AUDITOR GENERAL REPORT

According to Auditor General Report released recently, the National Treasury’s 2022 budget review report, the government budgeted R62,1 billion in 2021-22 for infrastructure spending in local government they failed to spend R2,91 billion the unspent grant funding is returned to the department that provided the grant. The report further showed about R650 million was returned back by metros."Some municipalities, such as the Ngwathe, Dihlabeng, and Letsemeng local municipalities in the Free State and Dikgatlong Local Municipality in the Northern Cape, used grant money to fund their operations because of their cash-flow constraints," said the report.