Roads Agency Limpopo Fine Tunes Deliver on its Mandate
Roads Agency Limpopo (RAL) recently held their first strategic planning session in Polokwane to plan for the next five years, 2020 – 2025.
The session focused on analysing and strategizing on the efficient implementation of the Agency’s mandate amidst limited resources and heightened demand for roads in Limpopo Province. In attendance were RAL’s executive and middle management.
The session also had high level presentations from key stakeholders such as the Office of the Premier (of Limpopo Province); Limpopo Department of Public Works, Roads and Infrastructure; Limpopo Department of Transport and Community Safety; Limpopo Economic Development, Environment and Tourism (LEDET) and Limpopo Tourism; Limpopo Department of Cooperative Governance, Human Settlement and Traditional Affairs (COGHSTA); and the South African National Roads Agency SOC Ltd (SANRAL) on how they can support each other.
Tabling his Community Engagement Report, RAL CEO, Gabriel Maluleke listed seven challenges to the effective implementation of the Agency’s mandate, namely backlog in new road infrastructure, backlog in maintenance of existing road infrastructure, serious underfunding
“DO WE NECESSARILY HAVE TO PAVE THE ENTIRE GRAVEL ROAD NETWORK OR DO WE HAVE TO KEEP SOME AS GRAVEL AND MAINTAIN THEM?”
for road infrastructure, protests on daily basis resulting from requests for road infrastructure, expensive roads (R10 million/km), stakeholder relations, and internal capacity (including moratorium on appointments).
On the negative impact of under investment in road infrastructure, he made a representation of the decline of road conditions over the years due to limited road maintenance and budgetary constraints.
“The existing good roads are decreasing and are becoming very poor as a result of limited routine and preventative maintenance,” said Mr Maluleke, at the back of a recent HoDs (Heads of Department) Forum.
“Yet the very good roads are increasing as a result of gravel roads being upgraded from gravel to tar because the focus in past few years has been on building new roads at the expense of maintaining the existing infrastructure.”
Citing a Cesar Queiroz and Surhid Gautam 1992 World Bank study on the relationship between road infrastructure and economic development, he said there is a very strong association between economic development, in terms of per capita Gross National Product (GNP) and road infrastructure.
“Wherever you build a road you unlock economic development. RAL, thus, has an indirect impact on economic development in the province including its spent on SMMEs.”
The Agency requires R130 billion to tar the entire balance of 13 801 kilometres of gravel road in Limpopo while maintaining the current road infrastructure. See Table 1.
“We need to strike a balance and come with a solution to build new roads amidst protests and demands for new roads while maintaining the existing investments.”
In March 2019, the Agency had a meeting with the entire five district municipalities of Limpopo Province where, according to Mr Maluleke, they requested the municipalities to consolidate their requirements for priority roads (including from local municipalities) that they want upgraded and gravel roads that needed to be maintained, amidst amplified demand for roads.
“The municipalities said they have a pressing demand for 2 365 kilometres of road. To sort that out, the Agency will require about R23 billion and as it stands the annual allocation for RAL is currently at about R1.5 billion to build roads,” said Mr Maluleke, See Table 2 on Integrated Development Plan (IDP) for local government that factored in hotspots for road infrastructure demands.
Mr Maluleke said a simple sum tells one that with the current allocation this is “a dire situation that will take years
to resolve”.
Limpopo is a vast, sparsely populated rural province. For example, the Waterberg District has the smallest population but highest road network of all the district municipalities creating phantom backlog.
“We can debate as to whether do we necessarily have to pave the entire 13 801 kilometres of gravel or unpaved road network or do we have to keep some as gravel and maintain them? The demand for roads comes from seeing development in the next village.”
The Roads Agency Limpopo management’s strategic planning session is a precursor to the RAL Board of Directors’ own strategic planning session.
RAL is the road infrastructure implementing agent for the Limpopo Provincial Government under the auspices of the Department of Public Works, Roads and Infrastructure.
Thus, in terms of section 25(1) of its act of establishment (“the RAL Act”), RAL is vested, within the framework of government policy, with the power to perform all strategic planning with regard to the provincial roads system, as well as the planning, design, construction, operation, management, control maintenance and rehabilitation of provincial roads for the province, and is responsible for the financing of all those functions, in accordance with its business and financial plan, so as to ensure that government’s goals and policy objectives concerning provincial roads are achieved.
The Agency is led by a Chief Executive Officer who reports to the Board of Directors. Members of the Board in turn report to the Shareholder – the Limpopo Provincial Government, which is represented by the incumbent MEC for Limpopo Department of Public Works, Roads and Infrastructure.