South Africa ranks in the top five African countries with best infrastructure, says Ramaphosa

President Cyril Ramaphosa has hailed South Africa for ranking in the top five African countries with the best public infrastructure, despite admitting there is room for improvement.

Ramaphosa said while many parts of the country continue to experience poor delivery of basic services, South Africa has a good core network of public infrastructure that is improving the lives of citizens.

“Our country consistently ranks highly on indices published by the African Development Bank that evaluate the status of transportation, electricity, ICT and water and sanitation infrastructure,” he said.

The president said infrastructure development played a key role in ensuring fast economic growth and alleviating poverty.

However, he admitted for the country's “world-class infrastructure” to support its developmental goals, it had to be properly, effectively and efficiently maintained.

“Decisions on infrastructure investment have to respond to the growing need and be upgraded appropriately,” he said.

Last week Ramaphosa attended the launch of a new phase of upgrades to the Vulindlela bulk water supply scheme in KwaZulu-Natal, an infrastructure project that mainly services the uMgungundlovu and uMsunduzi municipalities.

He said when the first phase of the scheme was commissioned 25 years ago, it was only servicing 100,000 people, and that number has almost tripled in the intervening years, putting strain on existing infrastructure resources.

“Once the current upgrades are completed, approximately 350,000 residents will receive clean, quality water. The Darvill wastewater treatment plant outside Pietermaritzburg has also been upgraded and will be able to treat up to 100-million litres a day and better service households, businesses and industries in the municipality,” he said.

Ramaphosa said despite the country having good quality infrastructure, in far too many instances it was not being properly maintained and upgraded.

“Last year the South African Institution of Civil Engineering gave the country’s social infrastructure a D rating, with E being failed or failing. Passenger rail scored particularly low, achieving an E,” he said.

The president said the country continued to witness the detrimental consequences of failure to maintain public infrastructure. He said we are seeing accidents, disease outbreaks and other tragedies that in some instances have been associated with dilapidated infrastructure.

“The maintenance of public infrastructure is often the responsibility of local government. It remains of concern that municipalities are failing to spend conditional grants allocated to them for maintenance and upgrades of infrastructure,” he said.

Ramaphosa recalled national Treasury's recent reports that slightly more than half of the municipal infrastructure grant was being spent by municipalities. The grant is for upgrading and building new infrastructure and rehabilitating existing infrastructure.

“At the last meeting of the president’s co-ordinating council in June, we agreed on greater accountability from municipalities that consistently underspend their conditional grant allocations,” he said.

The president said part of the problem was that municipalities, especially smaller municipalities, lacked implementation capacity. He said some municipalities are spending conditional grants successfully and timeously.

“For example, approximately 91% of funding allocated to municipalities to fund reconstruction and rehabilitation after floods in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal was spent by the respective municipalities,” he said.

Ramaphosa said this indicated that with the necessary support, technical assistance, planning and co-ordination, the underspending problem can be overcome. 

“The department of co-operative governance, national Treasury and national and provincial government will continue to support municipalities to use their budgets effectively and fulfil their responsibilities to the South African people,” he said.

The president announced that construction is under way on several bulk water, housing, energy and roads projects.

“Together with better infrastructure maintenance, we are determined these investments will make a big difference in people’s lives.

“When social infrastructure is well maintained, not only do citizens benefit, but businesses are supported and the economy as a whole grows and develops.”