Farmers can now fix roads and bill state

High court ruling sets out tough standards for EC roads and public works department

FARMERS who fix their own damaged dirt roads can, in terms of a specific court order, now send the bill to the government.

Yesterday the Grahamstown High Court ordered the Eastern Cape roads and public works department to immediately begin implementing plans to repair and maintain its extensive and largely dysfunctional rural road network.

Significantly, the judgment sets out the conditions under which farmers can themselves arrange to have damaged gravel roads repaired and then bill the government for the work done.

AgriEC president Doug Stern hailed the judgment as a massive victory for rural and farming communities and said it was likely to set a tough precedent for other provinces.

In court papers, the department objected, indicating it believed this would “hand over to farmers a significant portion of the department’s budget bypassing normal procurement procedures”.

But Judge Judith Roberson said she had deliberately built in enough safeguards to avoid this happening.

Agri EC and individual farmers last year brought the application in which they sought to compel the department to take action and properly repair and maintain damaged rural roads, which were having a devastating effect on agricultural and rural economies.

The department estimates that of its 77 336km of public roads, 60 000km could be considered “rural roads, and for purposes of this court application, 37 000km was identified for extensive re-gravelling at a cost of R500 000/km and not simply routine maintenance.

However, Agri EC obtained quotes of only R200 000/km.

In May last year the department agreed to a court order obliging it to file a report outlining steps it would take to repair and maintain their roads and a date of expected completion.

It was to specify who would attend to the repair of the roads and under what conditions individual farmers could fix their own access roads.

It agreed that aspects of the report could then be made an order of court.

The department filed the report but then tried to backtrack on the agreedto structural interdict, which is an order requiring government to rectify a specified breach of fundamental rights under court supervision and it usually requires the government to regularly report back to court.

The department said, in retrospect, it wanted the structural interdict dismissed. Roberson declined to do so. Instead, she ordered the department to begin implementing its plans in line with its report to court. This included that: ● The integrated routine maintenance contracts for all rural roads be finalised within six months;

● Where the department is not providing proper in-house repair and maintenance services, it must finalise service level agreements with either municipalities or contractors within six months;

● The department is to provide within 90 days full details of roads to be resealed and rehabilitated, and to commence with such work within six months; and

● Within 90 days it must implement its envisaged “fast response in-house maintenance” operation to address flood and other natural disaster damage to rural roads.

She sets out in detail the conditions in which farmers can perform work on roads they use for farming activities and then bill the government.

It includes that where urgent repair to a farm road was warranted the farmer should notify the department that it should inspect the road within 30 days.

If it did not do so, the farmer could then obtain two independent quotes from civil contractors and proceed with the work.

If there was any dispute over the need for repair work, the decision should be referred to the chair of the Civil Engineers Association for the district in question.

The department is required to report back to the court before the end of May.

Roads and public works spokesperson Mphumzi Zuzile said the judgment was with the department’s legal team and it would take a decision soon on what steps to take.

Last year Zuzile said they needed R102-billion to fix the road network, but only had a budget of R1.96-billion.