Durban — Flood-damaged roads will be repaired if the transfer of R39 million from the roads provision department to the roads and storm-water maintenance department is given the green light.
The request to use savings from the roads provision department to pay for flood-damaged roads was tabled before the eThekwini executive committee on Tuesday.
The municipality’s human settlements and infrastructure committee received a report advising of savings identified from the road provision department to be transferred to the roads and storm-water maintenance department to cater for flood-damage repairs, as well as an upgrade of gravel roads.
“Funding of R35 million has been made available for the roads and storm-water maintenance department to address challenges related to the floods of April 2022,” the report said.
In view of the budget allocation, the roads and storm-water maintenance department went ahead to identify critical projects in line with its flooding prioritisation process. Damages were therefore ranked in terms of high, medium and low.
The report stated that priority would be given to working the roads that ranked as high as well as some of the medium-ranked roads.
Before the floods came, the department was already busy upgrading gravel roads through the low-volume gravel roads upgrade programme. An amount of R39 million was made available for this purpose in the 2021/22 financial year.
The report stated that this budget had already been spent.
However, due to the 10% retention money which finance had to cater for as part of this R39 million, there was a shortfall of R3.9m on work done.
Beryl Mphakathi, the deputy city manager of human settlements; engineering and transport, will seek approval, at a full council meeting later this month, to facilitate the transfer of R39m from the roads and provision department to the roads and stormwater maintenance department to cater for flood damage as well as the 10% retention money on projects already undertaken.
Daily News