a) The Department of Transport is currently assisting Road Authorities through the Shamba Sonke Programme and it is a nation-wide initiative involving all Provincial Road Authorities.
Provincial Road Authorities are supported through this Provincial Road Maintenance Grant (PRMG):
The PRMG is also used on the rural road networks to gather road data where District Municipalities are supported through the Rural Road Asset Management Systems Grant (RRAMSG) to:
The inspections in loco are performed by the technical teams to ensure quality assurance of road infrastructure delivered. Back to basic ethos are adhered to within the limited scarcity of technical resources.
b) In terms of the Division of Revenue Act (DORA), these funds has to be transferred to the Provinces and municipalities, who are the “implementing Agents”. Therefore, at this stage, the Department is reliant on the Provinces and Municipalities to insource the works as much as possible.
In most provinces, there is some form of insourcing taking place through implementation of projects using in-house teams. In the case of the Western Cape, additional insourcing is taking place through the appointment of the District Municipalities as an Implementing Agent by the province. The District Municipalities has their own staff.
The Department intends to change the Schedule of these grants to become an “Indirect Grant”, which allow the department to implement the works on behalf of the Provinces and Municipalities.
If this proposal is accepted by the Budget Council and the DORA is supported, as such, by Parliament and approved by the President, the Department plans to insource the works as much as possible within reason.