Lack of road maintenance impacting food security - Agri SA
Agri SA says the lack of road maintenance is a major headache for the country’s agricultural sector.
The organisation briefed the media on the findings of its survey on the impact of South Africa’s deteriorating road infrastructure on the sector on Tuesday.
Jack Armour, who is from Agri SA Free State, said an engineering report highlights a list of issues affecting the country’s road system.
“Problems with the roads is that there are ridges on the sides of the road and in essence the road becomes a river.
“The roads transform the rural society, it brings investment to rural areas, it creates jobs and lifts people out poverty more importantly it brings economic freedom.”
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Armour says there are no ground-level workers able to maintain the roads.
“There’s no pick and rubble crew, no re-gravelling. And the reason for this is inexperienced or lack of grader operators.
“Storm water problems also play a role, and this all due to poor and insufficient maintenance.
“The government and the department like to say it’s because of the flooding and the high rainfall. That’s not the problem, the problem is that the roads were not maintained. If they were maintained then the high rainfall would not have had such a problem.”
He also claimed that political interference has sounded the death knell for many road boards.
“They no longer in existence because they all became political, because they had to be quotas, and females and black people serving on the road boards. So the road boards never came to be and that’s what made roads work in the past.”
