Provincial transport MEC Ismail Vadi has admitted that 31 percent of Gauteng roads are in a poor or very poor condition.
In his budget address to the Gauteng legislature on Tuesday he said: “The assessment for 2010 shows that out of 4248km of tarred roads, nine percent of our roads were in very good condition, 27 percent in good condition, 33 percent is in fair condition, 20 percent in poor and 11 percent in very poor condition.
he said, according to his budget address delivered at the Gauteng Legislature.
“These statistics are disturbing; the international benchmark is that not morte than 10 percent of a country's roads should be in poor or very poor condition - and provincially we are now at 31 percent!”
Vadi said he’d allocated R1.2 billion to repairing and maintaining roads. Two years ago, he said, only 15 percent of the province's roads were in poor or very poor condition.
“The asset value of the road network in its current condition is about R39 billion; if we’d maintained our roads in very good condition they’d be worth R51 billion, so we’ve seen a net asset loss of 23.5 percent in less than five years.”
Traffic volumes on the roads were heavy, he pointed out, at 66 million vehicle kilometres - the total distance travelled by all vehicles - a day.
“More than half the provincial roads in Gauteng carry more than 5000 vehicles a day and 38 percent carry more than 10 000 cars a day,” he said. “We must act quickly and decisively to preserve our road network.”
The department had decided to focus on repairing, maintaining and rehabilitating roads in the province, instead of building new ones. Its budget allocation for the year stood at R6.2 billion, or nine percent of the province's budget.
Vadi said the process of reviewing the toll tariffs for the Gauteng freeway project was well underway, with a steering committee recommending that the tariffs be slashed by 20 percent, but the final decision would be made by transport minister S'bu Ndebele and Gauteng premier Nomvula Mokonyane.
“Two further steps, however, need to be taken. A decision must be made on the remaining phases of the project. Should we proceed with these phases?
“Also, these phases are presumably based on the user-pay principle. If this principle is to be reviewed, then how do we fund the next phases of the project, given our limited resources and the competing demands on them?”
The department would initiate “proper, public consultative processes” on the implementation of any further phases of the project, he said.
A large chunk of the budget - almost R2.2 billion - was allocated to the Gautrain. Addressing recent reports on the Gautrain's “patronage guarantee”, Vadi said the guarantee was a “mechanism by which the concessionaire could be assured of covering its minimum operating costs.
“The Gautrain was approved by the national treasury in 2006 as a public/private partnership. A 'patronage guarantee' was part of the deal and has been public knowledge since the signing of the agreement in 2006,” he said. - Sapa