Rising road costs worries MEC

Western Cape Transport and Public Works MEC Donald Grant has taken his cue from national Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene's assessment of the state of the country's finances, urging extreme caution when spending the department's money although 60 percent of the country's roads are in poor shape. Picture: David Ritchie

Western Cape Transport and Public Works MEC Donald Grant has taken his cue from national Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene's assessment of the state of the country's finances, urging extreme caution when spending the department's money although 60 percent of the country's roads are in poor shape. Picture: David Ritchie

Published Oct 24, 2014

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Cape Town - Western Cape Transport and Public Works MEC Donald Grant has taken his cue from national Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene’s assessment of the state of the country’s finances, urging extreme caution when spending the department’s money although 60 percent of the country’s roads are in poor shape.

Tabling his department’s annual report before the standing committee on transport and public works Grant said they were facing a new hurdle following Nene’s statements about curbing state spending.

“There are budget cuts in the offing or the increased taxes, so we must be extremely careful how we spend our money going forward,” Grant warned.

Addressing issues of road safety, Grant said he was very worried about the cost of crashes and fatalities to the country.

“If you look at it, we are losing about 18 000 people annually on our roads at a cost of R308 billion.

“It is almost double our health budget, yet we seem to be unconcerned about safety on our roads.”

According to the MEC, the Western Cape’s performance has improved since 2010 when the department embarked on the safely home programme and reduced the number of road deaths by almost 30 percent.

“We are short of our target of 50 percent but we are refining ways to make sure that we look at our data... and build in preventive measures to reduce the number of crashes, loss of life and accidents because the cost for the Western Cape last year was in excess of R21bn .”

Grant said in the Western Cape, 89 percent of our roads were good to fair.

ANC MPL Cameron Dugmore wanted back-up on the department’s claim that its 28 percent reduction in provincial road deaths, within five years is not equalled anywhere in the world.

The department’s Yasir Ahmed said

: “We felt comfortable enough after engaging with the university of Stellenbosch and UCT that it is one of the fastest reductions in road fatalities in such a short period of five years.”

Cape Argus

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