04 Aug 2019

The Ministry of Transport and Communications has entered into discussions with the local government and rural development and presidential affairs, governance and public administration ministries to transfer some small works to local authorities.

Minister of Transport and Communications, Ms Dorcas Makgato said councils possessed plants and equipment, but not inadequate funds to procure consumables for equipment’s such as fuel and grader blades.

“My ministry has proposed to advance some funds for the consumables to expedite the maintenance of roads,” she said.

Additionaly, Ms Makgato said an agreement had also been reached to transfer small works to the district tender adjudication committees so as to expedite the procurement process, thereby relieving the roads depots, including the one in Mochudi, of some of their loads.

Ms Makgato further said 33 tenders had already been transferred to the district administration tender adjudication committees (DATC).

She said the Mochudi depot had a complement of five technical officers, saying the number was adequate considering their objective to outsource their works to the private sector.

The depot, said Ms Makgato, was headed by a chief technical officer assisted by two principal technical officers, a road engineer and a technical officer.

She said the dry-grading of the Modipane-Mabalane, Radikolo-Modipane, Dikwididi-Mochudi and Ramotlabaki-Oliphant’s Drifts roads would start on August 14. 

She noted that it would done by small contractors on a series of short-term interventions of one slot a month each.

For the long-term, she said Modipane-Mabalane was to be outsourced by DATC while the rest would revert to the in-house team when the grader, which broke down on July 12, was back in service.

The tender for construction of the collapsed culvert between Oodi and Modipane, she said, was one of the works that had been transferred to Kgatleng DATC from the ministerial tender committee in order to expedite the procurement process.

Furthermore, she said the Modipane-Mabalane road was planned for funding during 2021-2022 under NDP 11.

“In the interim my ministry will source funds for the design and environmental impact assessment,” she said.

Mochudi East MP, Mr Moagi Molebatsi had asked the minister to apprise Parliament on what his ministry was doing to assist the Mochudi office to have adequate plant machinery, vehicles and technical officers for dry grading the Modipane-Mabalane, Radikolo-Modipane, Dikwididi-Mochudi and Ramotlabaki-Oliphant’s Drift roads. ENDS