Public works minister Thulas Nxesi has pleaded for patience from Eastern Cape communities demanding bridges from government, saying the demand far outweighed available financial resources.
“We have received a lot of applications for small bridges, but the funds for those are less,” Nxesi said.
He was speaking at the official unveiling of a new R5.4m Bailey bridge built in Nyosana village near Lusikisiki on Wednesday. The village falls under Port St Johns municipality.
It was built through a partnership between Nxesi’s department, defence & military veterans ministry, and the Eastern Cape roads and transport department.
Nxesi said: “If you take Gauteng and the Eastern Cape alone, over 300 bridges are needed, with most of them in the Eastern Cape.”
The Nyosana bridge is the third Bailey bridge to be constructed in the Eastern Cape out of the nine bridges announced last year by Eastern Cape roads and transport MEC Weziwe Tikana.
The other two that have already been completed were in Mbhashe municipality and Matatiele. The first bridge was unveiled in Mncwasa village in Elliotdale last week.
Construction on the remaining six are said to still be ongoing.
Tikana said her department had set aside a sum of R77m to build nine bridges.
On Wednesday, she told journalists that no fewer than 10 new bridges would be built in the province in the next financial year, on top of the nine planned for the current financial year.
Nxesi explained how he had been approached by teachers at Toli High School near Nyosana, who had to cross the Nyosana River to get to Guleni village to attend school.Toli is regarded as one of the best performing schools in Port St Johns and, as a result, has more than 1,000 pupils on its books.“Teachers had to lift their dresses up to their shoulders just to cross the river and get to school,” he said.Meanwhile, Nyosana resident Sikhumbuzo Mpinda told the Daily Dispatch that pupils had to strip off their uniforms to get across, while claiming that many people had died trying to cross the river over the years.Defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, who also attended the Nyosana bridge unveiling, said no child should ever drown again while trying to get to a school.She said the deaths of the six primary school pupils in Matatiele, who drowned while trying to cross a river earlier this year, should serve as a lesson to everyone.“It should not have happened, but it did. But [as government] we are learning from our mistakes,” she said, while also praising Port St Johns mayor Nomvuzo Mlombile-Cingo and her council for bringing the plight of the pupils and teachers from Toli to her attention.But she stressed that her department did not provide any funding except for the manpower.A huge chunk of the budget to build bridges came directly from the provincial roads and transport department.Nxesi’s department meanwhile played a co-ordinating role.Mapisa-Nqakula also urged parents to guard their little children against playing on the steel bridge.“They might fall down and injure themselves,” she cautioned.Eastern Cape Premier Phumulo Masualle urged residents to take care of the new bridge, saying it was meant to improve their lives.He also conceded that the demand for new bridges was huge in the Eastern Cape...