Road upgrades: This is how much each municipality in KZN will get

Durban - The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport stated that most heavily trafficked roads have passed their design lifespan, while some heavily trafficked roads are not designed to accommodate freight.

Transport MEC Peggy Nkonyeni made the remark at the KZN legislature on Thursday.

She said this has increasingly manifested itself through road failure, more potholes, higher accident rates, increased vehicle operating costs, longer journey times, higher transaction and logistic costs, reduced productivity, reduced global competitiveness and high levels of public discontent.

“It is within this context that the department will continue to streamline, consolidate, and elevate the management of strategic partnerships and inter-governmental relations to improve co-ordination and collaboration between the province, national government and its entities, municipalities and other social partners,” she said.

This will support integrated planning and ensure a more efficient delivery of services. Notwithstanding transport infrastructure financing and other challenges, the need to maintain the primary road network and keep it at appropriate levels will continue to be one of the most important strategic focus areas especially when the department is faced with significant maintenance backlogs, Nkonyeni said.

“It is well-documented that the Provincial Road Network in South Africa has been under-budgeted for several decades. The backlog is estimated to be at around R417 billion, of which the provincial road maintenance backlog accounts to R15 billion.”

In the 2022/2023 financial year, the department plans to upgrade 183km of surfaced road, build new 50km of gravel road, and construct 10 vehicle bridges and two pedestrian bridges.

In addition, it will rehabilitate and maintain 1 800 000 square metres of the current existing infrastructure. Some of these commitments will need to be re-prioritised based on the provincial needs post the April 2022 floods.

A realigned budget will be captured within the next month to suit the provincial needs.

This is in addition to the already existing 8 668km of the paved provincial road network and 25 404km of gravel road network throughout the province.

Nkonyeni said to improve the pace of delivery, the department has a memorandum of agreement with the Independent Development Trust to utilise their contracts.

This agreement includes five projects valued at R615 million.

The department has allocated more than 72% of its budget to this programme.

This programme is allocated R8.9bn.

The biggest allocation is going to the maintenance of existing infrastructure, which is allocated R4.2bn and the construction of new projects allocated R3.8bn. The remaining budget will go to programme support (R741m), infrastructure planning (R36m), and infrastructure design (R49m).

Infrastructure budget breakdown per district municipality:

New infrastructure