De Lille stands by plan to deliver on infrastructure projects

Patricia de Lille said her department remains committed to delivering infrastructure projects to push for growth in the country Picture: Ian Landsberg ANA

Patricia de Lille said her department remains committed to delivering infrastructure projects to push for growth in the country Picture: Ian Landsberg ANA

Published Nov 10, 2020

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Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia de Lille says they will stick to their plan on delivering infrastructure projects to push for growth in the country.

The government has been under pressure in recent times after some people lost jobs due to Covid-19.

In her address to Parliament on Tuesday, De Lille said despite some of the opposition parties not wanting to hear, there were a number of bankable projects in the pipeline.

She said the projects were worth billions of rand.

But the DA, EFF and United Democratic Movement raised questions on the targets set by government and how realistic the projects were.

But the ANC came to the defence of De Lille and said it fully endorsed the infrastructure projects.

The ANC said the Covid-19 pandemic has caused devastation to the economy and government was trying to revive it.

De Lille said despite some of the parties being sceptical there were realistic targets for the infrastructure projects.

She said the country must pull together for economic recovery after the damage caused by Covid-19.

MPs cannot keep saying there were problems without coming with solutions, she said.

"But we need to find a solution. We can’t just repeat problems over and over again. One of the reasons for ISA (Infrastructure South Africa) is to have a single entry point, a database where we report all the infrastructure projects wherever they are in the country," said De Lille.

She said they were also working on the backlog of some of the projects that have stalled.

They were busy conducting an audit on all these projects.

"The audit of the incomplete projects we are busy with that. We have done quite a bit, we are just waiting for input from various provinces and municipalities so that we can consolidate a register of all incomplete projects," she said.

De Lille also dismissed claims by opposition parties that the infrastructure projects announced by government were a pipe dream.

She said the Infrastructure Fund would have R100bn for projects.

This was also confirmed by Finance Minister Tito Mboweni in his Medium Term Budget Policy Statement a few weeks ago.

De Lille also said there was a commitment of R340 billion from the private sector to invest in infrastructure.

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