De Lille gazettes infrastructure projects
THE Department of Public Works and Infrastructure has gazetted its first tranche of projects that will see critical water, electricity and transport infrastructure projects come to fruition.
Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia de Lille and the head of infrastructure investment in the Presidency, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, recently addressed the media.
De Lille announced that all infrastructure projects across the country would now go through a single point of entry through the newly created Infrastructure SA (ISA), and a new methodology known as the Sustainable Infrastructure Development System (Sids) would be applied.
“When people think of infrastructure, they think of big, cold projects and there is often a disconnect about the importance of infrastructure and its impact on communities.
“Infrastructure is about people having water to drink, having decent roads, and having a bridge to cross to get to school, to work or access government services like clinics. Infrastructure is about changing people’s lives for the better,” De Lille said.
So far, by going across the country and engaging all spheres of government to find out what infrastructure projects they had in their systems, the department collected about 276 projects.
The comprehensive Sids methodology was applied to the list of 276 infrastructure projects and 55 projects and 12 special projects were found compliant with the methodology.
The projects were divided into six sectors, including water and sanitation, energy, transport, digital infrastructure, agriculture and agro-processing and human settlements sectors.
In addition, De Lille said they identified several labour-intensive public programmes that will see to the building of rural roads, bridges and cleaning of towns and cities.
The 12 special projects also have a specific aim to create much-needed jobs and assist in skills development.
The Rural Bridges “Welisizwe” programme is a project aimed at connecting rural communities to social amenities they need to access.
“They will no longer have to risk their lives crossing dangerous rivers to get to school, places of work or to access government services,” De Lille said.
She added that the department was putting together a database of the skills and capacity in South Africa so that locals can be used in the project developments.
De Lille also warned that they were working on systems to prevent and detect corruption among these projects.
“Corruption steals from the poor and that is something we can ill-afford. Corruption in this job creation industry must come to an end,” she said.