PA in premier’s small town revitalisation plans

Ndlambe municipality ‘in discussions, calling for proposals from consultants’

Ndlambe Municipality has confirmed it is in discussion with the Premier’s Office over the provincial government’s small town revitalisation project.

Port Alfred is one of the towns identified by the Office of the Premier as part of the provincial government’s small town revitalisation project.

Originally scheduled for implementation between the 2017-18 to 2021-22 financial years, Bhisho has extended the programme to the end of March 2025, adding a number of towns to the list set to benefit from a possible facelift.

The province needs more than R5bn to deal with roads, water and sanitation challenges faced by the selected small towns.

This was revealed by premier Oscar Mabuyane to the provincial legislature recently, when he said it was a concern that “in the new democracy, there has never been funding set aside to address the inadequate infrastructure, nor the decaying infrastructure in rural or small towns across the country, resulting in the current conditions for the majority of our small towns in the province”.

Mabuyane said the second-phase small town revitalisation intervention, spearheaded by his office, would focus on upgrading services such as water, sanitation, electrification and roads infrastructure, “underpinned by local economic development, youth empowerment and skills development”.

Asked by DA MPL Nqaba Bhanga during a house sitting recently about the state of small towns across the province, Mabuyane lamented government’s failure to deal with “structural issues”, especially in rural areas.

“One of the main contributors structurally is the inadequate infrastructure in our small towns, leading to business finding it difficult to settle and thrive in our small towns.

“This leads to a high concentration of businesses moving away from our small towns, not because they would not have sufficient customers but because services like electricity, roads, water and sanitation are unstable,” Mabuyane told the legislature.

He said small towns such as Ngqeleni, Libode, Kirkwood in the Sunday’s River municipality, Dikeni, Mt Fletcher, Port St Johns, Port Alfred, Willowmore in the Dr Beyers Naudé municipality, Flagstaff and eMaXesibeni, were some of the towns identified for the programme.

The second phase would see small towns such as Kei Mouth and Chintsa in Great Kei, Mqandui, Whittlesea, Ngcobo, Dutywa, Nqamakwe, Jourbertina and Kareedouw in the Koukamma municipality, benefiting from the programme between 2022 and 2025. “Part of the criteria used for the selection of towns during the first phase of the implementation of the small town revitalisation programme was the recognition of previous and current efforts by the municipality to invest in infrastructure, economic development potential and future impact of the investment to the province, land availability and superfluous state buildings within the municipality, tourism potential of the town, transportation linkages, and knowledge economy potential or university towns,” he said.

He said earmarked projects in Mqanduli included the construction of an Mqanduli vehicle testing station and the upgrading of the town’s internal roads, and Whittlesea’s streets and stormwater drains upgraded.

Engcobo municipality will see the surfacing and upgrading of Greenland’s farm internal streets, while in Dutywa internal streets will be upgraded and the Msikithi and Siyibane access roads surfaced.

Similar projects, Mabuyane said, would be rolled out in other small towns as part of the new phase.

Ndlambe spokesperson Cecil Mbolekwa confirmed the Office of the Premier’s engagement with the municipality.

“There are discussions between the Premier’s Office and our local economic development section, but we must also indicate that the project is still in a planning phase. There are due processes that need to be followed before we can talk about it.

“They are busy calling for proposals from consultants who can develop documents that will talk to the project.

“Once the project starts, we will inform everyone.” - An earlier version of this article originally appeared in DispatchLIVE