DA Limpopo wants RAL dissolved

Sekhukhune

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Limpopo, has called for the Limpopo Provincial Government to dissolve the Roads Agency Limpopo functions, citing maladministration and mismanagement of funds within the agency.

The party said it has called the provincial government to dissolve all RAL functions and be taken over by the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure.

DA Spokesperson for Public Works, Roads and Infrastructure in Limpopo, Risham Maharaj, reiterated that the entity has been characterised by failure to meet its mandate, gross mismanagement and poor financial controls, despite these glaring failures, the average annual salary for an employee is R900 000.

“RAL’s personnel expenditure is R74.897 Million for 83 employees, which includes 6 top management, 5 senior management, 24 qualified professionals, 20 skilled workers, 21 semi-skilled workers and 7 unskilled workers. These employee costs are expected to increase by 30% in the 2022/23 financial year due to filling of vacancies and salary increases,” he said.

According to Maharaj, roads are meant to play a critical role in the economic growth and development in the province but so far, RAL has failed to address the demand for paved roads.

“Limpopo only has 31% paved roads and 69% of the province’s roads remain gravel. Other districts have a huge percentage of gravel roads respectively,” he said.

Maharaj informed that it is estimated that RAL will need R138 Billion to upgrade all gravel roads in the province and that at current funding levels will take 115 years to address the backlog.

“This is largely due to neglecting maintenance over the years. RAL has received an unqualified audit with findings for five years and continues to fail to achieve a clean audit largely due to non-compliance with legislation and failure to prevent, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. The entity incurred irregular expenditure of R5.3 billion including previous years expenditure that Provincial Treasury has refused to condone,” he said.

Maharaj went on and said: “It is clear that RAL has proven itself to be a perennial poorly run entity that is an unnecessary expense and has failed to provide services to the people of Limpopo. It is the only provincial road agency and there is no need for it.”

He said the party has written to MEC for Public Works, Roads and Infrastructure, Nkakareng Rakgoale, to register their concerns.

“Ridding the province of this expensive, wasteful and ineffective entity is the only way Limpopo will get road infrastructure that will drive the economic development people in the province need,” he said.