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The KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Roads Bill has had a long gestation period. This is not surprising if one considers that :

Firstly, Roads constitute ties that bind - ties that make community life itself possible. Roads are a condition for development. As J F Kennedy puts it -

" It is not the wealth of a country that builds roads, but it is the roads that build the country's wealth ".

Secondly, the fact that all of us use language to talk does not mean that all of us can talk about language. To the untutored therefore, a language is a language is a language.

In the same way that all of us use roads does not mean that all of us can talk about roads except when something goes wrong with them.

This presents a particular responsibility on public representatives to truly and energetically apply their minds when legislating on this crucial instrument for the development of our province. The intense debate on this Bill that took place in the portfolio committee and public forums is better understood in this context.

This Bill provides for the transformation and restructuring of the road network in the province.

- It repeals laws and ordinances of the former KwaZulu Government and former Natal Provincial Administration. These are tabled in the schedule on page 44 of the Bill.
- It creates balanced road network in the province and seeks to undo the discrimination of the past, which denied particularly African people in rural areas equal access to the road networks.
- It recognises rural community access roads, which were not recognised as part of the road network.

This meant that Africans in the main were excluded from developing economically, isolated socially and intellectually as well as in terms of access to basic facilities, including education, health and general welfare.

The current condition of our road network is as follows:
- A proclaimed network of 24 306 km of road which are still in a maintainable condition
- A further 17 719 km of roads, which are in a bad state of repair and must be urgently upgraded.

Any analysis of our current road network will highlight the fact that, historically, budget allocations to upgrade and maintain the road network to an acceptable standard have been governed more by factors of privilege and power than by a genuine assessment of the real contribution a road makes to be economic, social, and physical well being of all KwaZulu-Natal citizens.

We have inherited a situation in which millions of citizens travel daily on many thousands of kilometres of roads that are under designed for the purposes, which they serve and the high volumes of traffic, which they carry. These roads invariably serve rural populations and their condition results in underperformance in the rural economy, unnecessarily high costs of living and inadequate basic service provision.

And we are talking very large numbers when we talk about inadequate road provision and the abnormally high vehicle operating costs associated therewith. In our roads Maintenance Needs Assessment for KwaZulu-Natal, which was completed last year, we calculated that approximately 20 million kilometres are travelled on KwaZulu-Natal's rural road network everyday at an estimated road user cost of R 7, 25 billion per annum..

It was further calculated that the poor condition of parts of the rural road network result in unacceptably high vehicle operating costs amounting to R1,29 billion above the norm per annum. This reflects a cost to the economy that is largely borne by poor people. In fact, I reported on the findings of our Roads Maintenance Needs Assessment Study as early as my 1999 budget speech. You might recall that I used the example of how upgrading only 160 kilometres of priority roads in Nkandla would result in a direct saving of R11,3 million per annum in vehicle operating costs for local road users. I would like to repeat: A saving of R11,3 million per annum! R11,3 million will undoubtedly enrich the household savings of our poorest citizens. It might interest you that, with petrol and diesel price increases and other inflationary measures, this R11,3 million is now calculated to be a saving of R15,8 million per annum.

I need not remind you that the district of Nkandla is by no means a unique example. A similar case could have been made for Mahlabathini, Nongoma, Msinga, Nqutu, Umbumbulu, Vulamehlo, Umzumbe, Ingwavuma or for any district for that matter where the vast majority of the population is made up of rural Zulu people.

We inherited a situation in which rural access roads - which in reality meant roads in African areas - were previously not recognised as part of the provincial road network. So much so that when I became MEC for Transport in KwaZulu-Natal I inherited a budget allocation of only R3 million for Roads for Rural Development.

Think on that! A mere R3 million to provide road infrastructure access to meet the mobility needs of the majority of KwaZulu-Natal's citizens. At the same time, under Road Ordinance No. 10 of 1968, byroads (local roads) serving essentially White owned commercial farms were to be treated as if they were district roads. The KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Roads Bill does make provision for the declaration and de declaration of roads. We do have cases, example Dundee District near Ncome Prison, of a declared road serving only two farmers while an undeclared track serves the nearby community of more than 2 000 people.

I would like to re-emphasise that when we are talking road infrastructure neglect in KwaZulu-Natal we are not just talking about community access or local roads, we are also talking about issues of servitude. Recently, I was approached by Inkosi Biyela of kwaYanguya, whose ward is separated by a distance of 50 km by a privately owned commercial farm. When Inkosi Biyela was building a community school at Ncanyini, the farmer refused access through his farm. This refusal added 50 km to bringing building materials to Ncanyini school. The K ZN Roads Bill addresses the issue of servitude in the best interest of public access.

The amalgamated KwaZulu-Natal Department of Transport was expected to meet the challenge of remedying network inequalities that arose during apartheid through separate development and, at the same time, maintain the established road network to an appropriate standard. This was and still is a daunting challenge, particularly as 80% of people and goods are transported by road in KwaZulu-Natal and if our Provincial road network were to fail then quite clearly this would impact very negatively on our Provincial economy and on service provision.

Fundamental to meeting this challenge is an appropriate legal framework to replace the existing legal framework that gave rise to such glaring inequalities in the first instance. In KwaZulu-Natal the physical contrast between a developed and relatively well maintained road network and an undeveloped hardly maintained road network mirrors the social contrast between rich and poor and between the former NPA and the former KwaZulu homeland. While inter urban and commercial agricultural areas have a relatively good road infrastructure our other rural areas are not well served. Given the critical role that road infrastructure plays in accessing communities to social and economic opportunities as well as to public services, we can only conclude that those rural communities without adequate access have not yet been appropriately facilitated by Government to develop their potentials. The KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Roads Bill provides the legal framework that allows and, indeed, compels the Department of Transport to use its budgets to secure equitable road provision in our province - to become part of a planning and implementation process that unlocks the wealth and true development potential of this province.

Without an appropriate legal framework it is exceptionally difficult for democratic government to address the real issues of inequality that we inherited from undemocratically elected governments of the past. Political will is not enough. Political will must be reinforced by an appropriate legal framework.

For the first several years, as MEC for Transport in KwaZulu-Natal, I banged my transformation head against the walls of a bureaucracy that, for all intents and purposes, justified its restrictive responsibilities with the very legislation that our KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Roads Bill now seeks to repeal.

The KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Roads Bill seeks to consolidate the gains that have been made over the past few years and to provide the legal framework for the popular mandate to provide equitable services to all in the best interests of the economic and social growth of KwaZulu-Natal.

In other words the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Roads Bill provides the legal framework to secure social justice in the provision of road infrastructure and transport services.

The KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Roads Bill makes provision for declaring an equitable and balanced road network, which meets the mobility needs of all our population and, at the same time, facilitates the growth and development of the road construction industry to better reflect our demographic profile.

KwaZulu Natal is a developmental Province. Roads are the cornerstone of development. Therefore the Bill identifies what is to be done, who is to do it, how it is to be done and because it is moving away from rhetoric to action provides the powers to do that which our province has been crying out aloud to have done.

To quote from Part II of the Bill

"The Minister must develop, declare, implement, administer and promote the provincial road network in terms of effective, open, accountable and co-operative governance and in accordance with national and provincial norms, standards and practices to:
* achieve optimal road safety standards within the Province;
* protect and maintain provincial road network assets;
* achieve the progressive realisation of equitable road access to all communities within the Province;
* ensure efficient and cost effective management and control of the provincial road network; and
* maintain and protect the environment."

Thus the Bill removes the provision of roads from being dependent on the whims of the incumbent at the Department of Transport.

I thank you

Issued by the Office of the MEC for Transport, KwaZulu-Natal, 28 February 2001