3.1 Background

• During the summer 2000 floods, extensive damage was sustained primarily to roads and bridges. The said damage was particularly severe in the Eastern Cape, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State Province, resulting in serious socio-economic disruption.

• More that three hundred access routes via low water and other bridges were destroyed in the country. This had serious implications on agriculture, trade, education and access to residential areas and health facilities. Consequently, a great need existed for access restoration.

• Although a huge effort was launched in conjunction with the relevant provinces towards reconstruction, the process necessarily required time. As a result there is still infrastructure to be repaired and a number of communities are inconvenienced.

• Measures to provide temporary / emergency solutions were limited to the capability to deploy one temporary tactical SANDF bridge at George’s Valley in the Limpopo Province. The South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) indicated that they had one temporary bridge, which was not available for deployment at the time.

• The SANDF will, due to it’s policy framework within the South African White Paper on Defence and the Defence Review, assist in disaster relief as far as their wartime capability allows, but will refrain from budgeting and spending defence money to create a co-lateral capacity.

• From a process of fact-finding on temporary / emergency bridges, the following information emerged:

• An estimate of the replacement value of the bridge currently deployed at George’s Valley, is approximately R14 million, whilst a comparative price for the same span and capacity, but using a commercially available line of communication (LOC) bridge, is approximately R800 000-00.

• As previously indicated, the SANDF will not budget for such a facility but will act as a custodian for the equipment and as a deployment agency on a cost recovery basis.
• Duriing July – August 2004 it was determined that there were still 262 missing crossings in the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal.

3.3 Steps taken to address the situation

• A Cabinet Memorandum was submitted in January 2002 – but was not distributed.

• A letter was addressed to the Director-General of the National Treasury (Ms Maria Ramos) on 13 August 2002 regarding MTEF Budget Submission.

• There was a presentation to National Treasury on 23 September 2002 regarding the MTEF budget input.

• A decision was taken that it is the responsibility of the National Roads Agency (NRA) to address the issue. The situation is however, that the problem is not that of the NRA, but concerns provincial and municipal roads, especially in the deep rural areas.