SPEECH BY KWAZULU-NATAL MEC FOR TRANSPORT, MR S'BU NDEBELE, AT THE
OFFICIAL HANDOVER OF NTSHONGWENI COMMUNITY ACCESS ROADS, 23 July 2000
Master of Ceremonies
Mayor and Deputy-Mayor of Outer West Local Council
Councillors Present
Amakhosi Present
Representatives of Political Parties and Community Organisations Present
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a great pleasure for me to be invited at the
handover of Ntshongweni Community Access Roads. I am grateful because we are
not gathered here to resolve disputes or because someone has been killed. We
are gathered to celebrate the successful completion of one of the
cornerstones of our economy, namely the roads. The roads constructed here
were funded by the Outer West Local Council and the Consolidated
Municipality Infrastructure Program (CMIP). Roads play a significant role in
our economy both national and Provincial. If economic development has to
start, it must definitely start on the road. More than 80% of goods and
people within KwaZulu-Natal are transported by road. The number of vehicles
on our roads increases annually and congestion levels demand that we give
serious attention to upgrading our rural road network.
Our involvement as a Department in road construction and maintenance at
Ntshongweni was primarily through the maintenance and construction of
community access roads. Road maintenance occurs through our road
construction programme that is unique to KwaZulu-Natal. This programme
concerns the construction and maintenance of roads identified as priority
needs by Rural Road Transport Forums and the communities that they serve.
The aims of the programme include :
Promoting and supporting affirmative business- allowing previously
disadvantaged contractors to compete for work in an open market in a
sustainable manner
Promoting equity in the civil engineering sector by creating more employment
opportunities and the development of Black entrepreneurs
Promoting sustainable business development by developing emerging
contractors to acquire business skills, access to capital and business
partnerships necessary to thrive in an open market. We will spend more than
R150 million on emerging contractors by the end of 2000/2001.
We all know that President Thabo Mbeki tasked all Ministers in South Africa
with developing innovative programmes that meet the needs of the poor. In
our Province, the number of women headed households has increased through
the decades of civil conflict, which saw thousands upon thousands of women
widowed and children orphaned. Consequently I championed R10 million
expenditure on the development of our Zibambele Programme. This is a social
responsibility programme that creates sustainable job opportunities for poor
rural families through the maintenance of rural roads.
Zibambele Programme is a direct spin-off from the findings of a delegation
of engineers I sent to Kenya in 1998 under the then Director : Development
Mr Kwazi Mbanjwa to study how they maintain their rural road network. While
world wide development investments usually target successful sectors of
within a given population, Zibambele initiative give maintenance contracts
to the poorest and the most marginal in rural communities.
Zibambele has put to work those people who would normally be left out of any
opportunity because of their desperate poverty. Almost all Zibambele
contracts have been issued to households that are headed by rural Black
women which makes Zibambele the biggest rural gender empowerment programme
in the Province. Zibambele contracts have been issued to families that had a
zero income before the start of this programme. Each contract runs for one
year, but it is intended that contracts will be extended annually and that
they will last for as long as the road maintained is of value to the
community. Currently there are more than 2700 Zibambele contracts up and
running in KwaZulu-Natal. Each contract has a monthly household income of
R250, 00 for a maximum of sixty hours work per month. In 2000/2001 we have
set a target of 6000 Zibambele contractors and we have begun to link
Zibambele with a labour intensive road construction programme.
Our motto is simple "give us the money today and we will put people to work
tomorrow"
However, road construction and maintenance is meaningless if it is not
accompanied by adherence to safety rules on the part of road users. You are
all familiar with Asiphephe which has strong links with communities through
community road safety councils. It is up to you as citizens of this Province
to ensure that we all develop a culture of road safety among our children.
For too long KwaZulu-Natal has been associated with bad things, AIDS,
political violence, taxi wars, floods, etc. Let us develop a new person in
KwaZulu-Natal. This new person will be a development activist, a volunteer
who participates in our road safety awareness campaigns. Such a person will
not "so much seek to give so as to receive" but will tirelessly contribute
to the development of others and in the end all will bow down in praise to
say "A New Person has been borne in KwaZulu-Natal.
I THANK YOU
Issued by the Office of the MEC for Transport, KwaZulu-Natal, 23 July
2000
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