Question NW1448 to the Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure

Reply:

The Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure:

(a) The Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) percentage of budget and actual amount of money budgeted for maintenance of infrastructure in the 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 financial years and since 1 April 2020 is outlined in table 1 below:

Table 1: Infrastructure maintenance budget

Line Item	2017/18	2018/19	2019/20	April to June 2020
	Budget	% of total Budget	Budget	% of total Budget	Budget	% of total Budget	Budget	% of total Budget
	R'000		R'000		R'000		R'000
Scheduled and Unscheduled Maintenance	1 367 580	9%	1 570 448	10%	1 781 095	10%	1 437 861	7%
Repair	943 594	6%	1 087 519	7%	1 339 429	7%	1 451 024	7%
Refurbishment	1 034 464	7%	1 020 776	6%	1 233 776	7%	1 319 637	7%
Total	3 345 639	23%	3 678 743	22%	4 354 300	24%	4 208 522	22%

(b) The percentage and actual amount of the budgeted amounts were spent in the 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 financial years are listed in Table 2 below

Table 2: Infrastructure maintenance expenditure

Line Item	2017/18	2018/19	2019/20	April to June 2020
	Exp	% Exp	Exp	% Exp	Exp	% Exp	Exp	% Exp
	R'000		R'000		R'000		R'000
Scheduled and Unscheduled Maintenance	1 316 633	96%	1 548 982	99%	1 781 095	100%	239 574	17%
Repair	952 025	101%	943 976	87%	1 057 534	79%	57 650	4%
Refurbishment	1 033 399	100%	926 515	91%	976 779	79%	57 650	4%
Total	3 302 057	99%	3 419 472	93%	3 815 408	88%	354 874	8%

(c) The scheduled and unscheduled maintenance budget for 2017/2018 was underspent by 4% and for 2018/19 the underspent was 1%, due to the portion of unscheduled maintenance, which cannot be predicted with certainty owing to breakdown of assets, equipment and conditions thereof.

In the mist of delivering infrastructure projects, DPWI encountered a number of challenges which include but not limited to the following:

• Incapacity of some emerging contractors implementing our projects is adversely affecting timeous delivery of projects.
• Clients requests for additional work and community protests and demands to be considered by service providers has financial implication on the preliminaries and generals costs of the projects;
• Limited professional services positions for Sketch Plan approvals, which adds to delays for approval of sketch plans;
• Extended tender adjudication and award dates;
• Community protests and work stoppages;
• Incapacity of some emerging contractors implementing DPWI projects is adversely affecting timeous delivery of projects.

(d) No Votes and/or line items were increased and/or reduced as a result of the under-expenditure.