A LANDMARK agreement between Agri Eastern Cape and the provincial Department of Roads and Public Works regarding the maintenance of rural roads in the province was endorsed by the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein last week.
There are about 37 000km of roads in the Eastern Cape, many of them being dirt roads.
Agri Eastern Cape president, Doug Stern, last Thursday described this landmark agreement as a victory for rural road users in the province. In a letter to the province’s farmers following the ruling, Stern said the agreement would see the organisation becoming a formal contributor to the annual provincial budgetary process on roads.
“Being granted this facility is highly unusual,” said Stern.
“It means that we will be able to make representations and assist in identifying which rural roads require the most urgent attention.”
Going forward, he said, it was agreed that the organisation would meet with the Department of Transport’s roads division on a quarterly basis to discuss maintenance programmes on the roads affecting rural farming communities.
Stern added that a sum of R15 million had been earmarked for urgent road repairs within the next six months.
“Should the department run out of money and not be able to allocate the agreed budget, the agreement provides that they must approach both the national and provincial Treasury and all other stakeholders they consider necessary to fulfil their undertaking.”
It was also agreed that there would be ongoing judicial supervision by the High Court in Grahamstown of progress made on road repairs and maintenance by the Department of Roads, he said. “The court has ordered that all costs relating to this case are carried by the department, which, in my opinion, is significant and constitutes a victory for both our members and rural road users in the Eastern Cape,” said Stern.
He said the agreement, however, did not provide for compensation for individual farmers who had undertaken rural road maintenance at their own cost.
The backlog with the maintenance and repairs to rural roads in the province was already more than R25 billion and was still increasing, Stern said.