(Archive photo: GroundUp)
The collapse of Mpumalanga’s road infrastructure is forcing farmers in rural areas to use their own funds and equipment to repair roads, despite the billions of rand allocated for road maintenance.
Werner Weber, FF Plus MPW in Mpumalanga, says the situation has now reached a critical point where those who must drive the economy must do the government’s work themselves.
“It is unacceptable that the people who put food on South Africans’ tables now also have to take over the state’s basic duties to simply get their products to the markets.”
Billions budgeted, little visible
The national government has allocated R1.5 billion to the province as part of the provincial road maintenance allocation, while the provincial department of public works, roads and transport has a total budget of around R6 billion for the 2026-’27 financial year.
Included in this, the department recently also purchased 19 new bulldozers worth around R50 million, which were officially received in March and distributed across the four districts.
Weber says these figures are in no way consistent with the reality on the ground in Mpumalanga’s road network.
“Even though billions of rand are made available for road maintenance and new equipment is purchased, many farmers still see no visible improvement to the roads. This raises serious questions about where this money ends up when communities experience no relief.”
Potholes by the hundreds repaired
The extent of the crisis is clear from the interventions that political parties and local communities are forced to undertake themselves to prevent further damage and accidents.
The FF Plus’ Piet Retief branch repaired 170 potholes on the D2232 between Piet Retief and Wittenberg in the past month alone.
According to Weber, these community-driven efforts cannot be considered a permanent solution, as they simply relieve the government of its constitutional obligations.
“It shows the strength and the will of the community to stand up, but it remains a shame that taxpayers have to pay double for services that should have been provided a long time ago.”
Greater accountability demanded
The party is now calling for urgent intervention and transparency on the spending of the provincial infrastructure budget to ensure that public funds are used judiciously.
“The FF Plus demands greater accountability and insists that budgeted funds are actually used for road repairs and maintenance, so that farmers no longer have to bear the burden of the government’s failures.
“We will continue to apply pressure so that every rand and cent earmarked for our roads also ends up on those roads,” says Weber.