By Umamah Bakharia 

The Gauteng MEC for Public Transport and Roads Infrastructure Jacob Mamabolo has tabled a budget of R8.7 billion to build and renew in the 2022/23 financial year.

He presented the department’s budget vote at the Gauteng Legislature where he revealed that of the R8.7-billion, approximately R402 million will be spent on administration.

Speaking to Radio Islam, Department of Public Transport and Roads Infrastructure Gauteng spokesperson, Theo Nkonki says they are focused on the core purpose of the department. 

“We are hoping to use this R8 billion to invest in infrastructure and make sure we create those jobs [as] construction work is quite a labour-intensive,” says Nkonki.

According to Nkonki, R2.5 billion will be spent on transport and infrastructure projects while R2.9 billion will go towards transport operations.

The department says it is working with the private and other departments to execute tasks.

“We make sure we position Gauteng as the inland hub for commodities and goods,” says Nkonki.

With regards to the potholes, the department says the problem lies incapacity of getting private sector partners to assist with class 1 and class 2 roads.

“We are finalising the procurement of those people, once we get those, we should see a huge impact on our maintenance,” says Nkonki.

He reaffirms that the Gauteng department is working closely with municipalities for weekly maintenance.

So far, the department says there is no future with e-tolls for South Africa.