ROAD TO ECONOMIC RECOVERY CAN ONLY START WHEN WE ARE UNITED IN FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19
Welcome to another edition of Mmileng, the quarterly magazine of Roads Agency Limpopo (RAL), which gives informative and insightful up-to-date news on the road infrastructure work of the Agency.
Mmileng Issue 4 of 2020 leads with a glowing assessment from the Limpopo Provincial Legislature Portfolio Committee for Public Works, Roads and Infrastructure on their recent oversight visits to RAL projects.
The Portfolio Committee Chairperson agreed that RAL needed more funding considering the quality work they do with a limited budget.
RAL’s Strategic Partnership Approach continues to be an innovative intervention to find funds from ‘somewhere’, other than from the provincial treasury that already has to do tradeoffs with health and education in its allocation, for delivery of services and public goods.
In our big Strategic Partnerships focus, we live up to RAL’s slogan of ‘Together for better roads’, zooming in on our biggest collaboration yet with various private companies and a public sector collaboration that shows how our one government is greater than the sum of its three spheres – to loan from a putative quote by Aristotle.
On page 14 we report on the signing of an agreement for the construction of the Steelpoort Bridge in the Sekhukhune District of Limpopo Province, after RAL was able to secure funds from various mines operating in the district. Though Social and Labour Plans (SLPs) are required by law as per licensing conditions for mines, RAL sadly still has to jostle for the slice of the SLP pie, which can go anywhere.
And on page 18, we focus on an intervention from national government, under the auspices of the South African National Roads Agency SOC Limited (SANRAL), on RAL provincial roads. This intervention from RAL national partner will knock-off just over 80 kilometres off Limpopo road infrastructure upgrading backlog in the next four years.
In RAL at Work, our regular project profile feature (page 24), we turn our attention to the recently completed upgrade, from gravel to bituminous (tarred) surface, of 7km on road D3556 in the village of Tiberius within Mogalakwena Local Municipality of the Waterberg District.
Immediately on the turn of the page, on page 28, in an offshoot of the main RAL at Work piece, we talk to local Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises that contributed in one way or the other to the construction of this quality road infrastructure project in their community. In empowering local small businesses - stretching over ten villages neighbouring Tiberius, this RAL project managed to over-achieve on its set target.
Of course we do not only focus on people who were involved in the project. On page 23, in our popular community feedback page Mintirho ya Vulavula, we visited Tiberius to get first-hand account of how the new road benefits road users and residents.
On page 34, in RAL Cares, we focus on the Agency’s role and efforts to support the health and wellness of its employees. Inasmuch as we are deep within the Covid-19 pandemic, we must not lose focus on the early detection and prevention of other conditions and diseases.
RAL Cares is an occasional feature that talks to the sincerity of how we, as an organisation, relate to each other, our environment and stakeholders on a more humane level.
As we continue to give platform to government’s efforts to help manage the spread of the disease, in this edition we switch focus to highlights of how government plans to respond to an economy decimated by the pandemic.
The economy ought to get back on track. Jobs have to be created. And service delivery must continue, particularly on road infrastructure.
But for that to happen, each one of us must play our part in the fight against Covid-19. ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.’
Stay Safe. Protect South Africa.