Durban - Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia de Lille says she is encouraged by the pace of the reconstruction and repair work done on the public infrastructure damaged during the April floods in KwaZulu-Natal.
This follows site visits conducted by the minister and her team in Durban and surrounding areas yesterday to determine the progress made with repairs. Some of the sites visited included the Durban Air Force Base, court facilities, and police and army facilities. The team also inspected some of the bridges that were damaged during the flooding in Ndwedwe and Mzinyathi.
“The deputy minister and I were pleased with the progress made over the past few months. However, there are areas where more urgency is needed to complete repair work quicker, especially the installation of the rural bridges,” said De Lille, adding that she would be in contact with her provincial counterparts to ensure that funds were released swiftly to help fast-track the construction of rural bridges.
The minister noted that work at the air force base, which included repairing damaged roofs, floors, walls, downpipes and gutters, the replacing of generators, repairing blocked sewage drains and removing mud from the hangar at the base, had also been concluded.
“We continue to track the progress of these projects through receiving weekly reports, but Deputy Minister (Noxolo) Kiviet and I thought it was important that we came back to the province to see the progress first-hand on the various projects.
“We will return to the province in the coming months to hand over bridges to communities in need and ensure that they have proper access to schools, places of work and other amenities,” she said.
She noted that in KZN the 23 bridges that are to be installed will result in 80 community members being employed through the Expanded Public Works Programme for each bridge. While initially 18 bridges had been planned for construction for the 2022/23 financial year, the severe floods earlier this year had prompted the need for an additional five bridges to be constructed.
The floods, according to De Lille, had also put into sharp focus the need to thoroughly assess the land before people resettled on it, to mitigate against future disasters.
“Prior to the resettlement, scientific information collected is applied to establish issues such as flood lines and to identify soil types that are unstable and fail as a result of severe precipitation in order to ensure that resettlement households and new housing development projects are not exposed to the same risks of the past. This process is undertaken in collaboration with key role-players in human settlements development. The process of verification for suitability of land parcels by the Housing Development Agency is currently in the final stages.”
She stressed that there would be a great need for co-ordination between national, provincial and local spheres of government as this was crucial to the speedy conclusion of the projects.
