Farmers yesterday came a step closer to having hundreds of kilometres of dysfunctional rural roads in the province repaired and maintained.
Roads MEC Thandiswa Marawu and her departmental head James Mlawu yesterday agreed to a high court order in terms of which they have just 30 days to produce a report on how they intend to repair and maintain all roads in their jurisdiction.
The report must also outline how long it will take the department to complete the work, who will do it, when the work will start and how they intend to maintain the roads in future.
The settlement came about yesterday moments before a class action – in which Agri Eastern Cape and individual farmers sought to compel Marawu and Mlawu to take action to properly repair and maintain rural roads – was to be argued in the Grahamstown High Court.
Former president of Agri EC Ernest Pringle said in an affidavit that the dire state of the rural road network affected commercial farmers throughout the province.
He said they resorted to court after endless requests had failed to see the department remedy the critical situation.
The department had failed to allocate sufficient funds, competent staff and experienced contractors to the road maintenance and repair over more than a decade.
Several farmers testified to the dismal state of their roads.
Bedford farmer, Alexander Pringle, said the 15km access road to his farm had not been maintained for almost 20 years.
“I have had to resort to blading and resurfacing the road at my own expense because on occasion, it has become so treacherous that it was impassable.”
Roads department planning engineer John Davies, who is responsible for needs assessment and planning, painted a grim picture of the state of the roads.
He conceded there was a “significant backlog” in roads maintenance compounded by regular floods.
“The situation is unlikely to improve in the near future as the problem is further exacerbated by the shrinking of the fiscus.”
He said it was naïve to think that the court playing a supervisory role would resolve the immense backlog. He described the R4.25-billion budget for the current financial year and the R13-billion budget over the 2015 medium term expenditure framework as a drop-in-the- ocean. But, he said the department did the best it could with limited resources.
Current Agri EC president Doug Stern hailed the settlement court order as a “massive victory” for organised agriculture and all rural communities.
He said the department had predicted it would cost in excess of R25-billion to repair all rural roads and had conceded it had neither the resources nor the capacity to do so.
“I think saw this case as an opportunity and that is why they agreed to this order.”
He warned that the department should not renege on the order.
“We have the financial backing to fight this all the way.”
He said organised farming across the country had awaited the outcome of the watershed case and would likely institute similar actions in their provinces.
Judge John Smith postponed the matter to mid-August to give the parties an opportunity to consider the report once it was produced.
MEC ordered to plan road fixes
Roads MEC Thandiswa Marawu and her departmental head James Mlawu yesterday agreed to a high court order in terms of which they have just 30 days to produce a report on how they intend to repair and maintain all roads in their jurisdiction.
The report must also outline how long it will take the department to complete the work, who will do it, when the work will start and how they intend to maintain the roads in future.
The settlement came about yesterday moments before a class action – in which Agri Eastern Cape and individual farmers sought to compel Marawu and Mlawu to take action to properly repair and maintain rural roads – was to be argued in the Grahamstown High Court.
Former president of Agri EC Ernest Pringle said in an affidavit that the dire state of the rural road network affected commercial farmers throughout the province.
He said they resorted to court after endless requests had failed to see the department remedy the critical situation.
The department had failed to allocate sufficient funds, competent staff and experienced contractors to the road maintenance and repair over more than a decade.
Several farmers testified to the dismal state of their roads.
Bedford farmer, Alexander Pringle, said the 15km access road to his farm had not been maintained for almost 20 years.
“I have had to resort to blading and resurfacing the road at my own expense because on occasion, it has become so treacherous that it was impassable.”
Roads department planning engineer John Davies, who is responsible for needs assessment and planning, painted a grim picture of the state of the roads.
He conceded there was a “significant backlog” in roads maintenance compounded by regular floods.
“The situation is unlikely to improve in the near future as the problem is further exacerbated by the shrinking of the fiscus.”
He said it was naïve to think that the court playing a supervisory role would resolve the immense backlog. He described the R4.25-billion budget for the current financial year and the R13-billion budget over the 2015 medium term expenditure framework as a drop-in-the- ocean. But, he said the department did the best it could with limited resources.
Current Agri EC president Doug Stern hailed the settlement court order as a “massive victory” for organised agriculture and all rural communities.
He said the department had predicted it would cost in excess of R25-billion to repair all rural roads and had conceded it had neither the resources nor the capacity to do so.
“I think saw this case as an opportunity and that is why they agreed to this order.”
He warned that the department should not renege on the order.
“We have the financial backing to fight this all the way.”
He said organised farming across the country had awaited the outcome of the watershed case and would likely institute similar actions in their provinces.
Judge John Smith postponed the matter to mid-August to give the parties an opportunity to consider the report once it was produced.
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