Maintenance backlogs have dragged South Africa’s infrastructure grade down to a D, or “poor”, in the first report card of the country’s built environment infrastructure, released by the South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) recently.
Major urban areas fare better than rural areas in its report on water, sanitation, solid waste, roads, airports, ports, rail and health infrastructure. Only the public sector is assessed, and housing and schools are not included.
The report, compiled by experts from SAICE and related fields, follows Cabinet’s recent adoption of the National Infrastructure Maintenance Strategy.
It finds South Africa’s built environment infrastructure “very good, even world class in parts”, but that maintenance backlogs exist because of funding and skills shortages. Major urban areas fare better than elsewhere.
It points out that one in 3Â 200 South Africans is an engineer, while the ratio in Western Europe, North America and India is between 130:1 and 450:1. An SAICE survey indicated at least 1Â 000 local government vacancies for civil engineers, technologists and technicians.
It emphasises that delays in maintaining infrastructure raise the costs of repair until replacement becomes the only option.
Here is the SAICE’s report card, including, where provided, an overall assessment.
Water and sanitation
Water
Department of water affairs and forestry infrastructure: D+
Major urban areas: C+
Other areas: D-
Sanitation
Major urban areas: C-
Other areas: E
Overall assessment: “South Africa has some very adequate water supply and sanitation infrastructure and service delivery, but also has an increasing proportion of deteriorating infrastructure, together with poor and often unacceptable quality services. While some water service institutions have exemplary practices in place in respect of infrastructure management, gross shortfalls in management policies and practice exist in many others.”
To address water backlogs, a large amount of infrastructure will have to be operated and maintained. At present, 8,2million people lack a basic water supply and 15,2million are without basic sanitation.
Only 72% of water services authorities, with a bias towards urban providers, complied with drinking water regulations.
A recent study of waste-water treatment works revealed that “immediate intervention” is required at about 30% to avoid crises. Most small and medium treatment works flout regulatory standards.
The water department lacks the budget to improve 150 of its 350 dams, which suffer from significant safety weaknesses.
Solid waste management
Major urban areas: C-
Other areas: D
Overall assessment: “Landfill sites in major urban centres are well managed, but many municipalities, especially rural municipalities, have uncontrolled dumpsites with attendant health risks. More widespread waste avoidance and recycling initiatives required.”
By the late 1990s, only 400 of the 1Â 600 estimated municipal solid waste dumps complied with legislated minimum requirements and were granted permits to operate.
Roads
Major urban areas: C
Other areas: D-
Overall assessment: “In some jurisdictions, current budgets are sufficient to prevent further deterioration of the more strategic roads, but in others they are not. Funding for the lower order of roads is in general decline. Overall, the maintenance backlog is increasing.”
About 72% of the national road network of about 370Â 000km is nearing the end of its design life.
The estimated cost of replacing provincial roads is R20billion, and R60billion for municipal roads.
Better road management systems are needed. By 2002, more than half of the provincial road authorities stopped carrying out annual visual condition index studies.
A delay in road maintenance of three to five years could raise the repair costs by between six and 18 times.
Airports
Airports Company of South Africa (Acsa) facilities: B
Overall assessment: “The key factor pertinent to the state of Acsa’s infrastructure has been its strong financial state and, in particular, its ability over the years to budget adequately for maintenance and replacement. Statutory requirements for safety and reliability have been strong incentives.”
Passenger growth has averaged 10% a year for 10 years, a trend that is expected to continue in the next five years. Four airports account for 85% of the annual passenger movement of 35-million passengers.
The replacement cost of Acsa-run infrastructure, including the major airports and nine provincial airports, exceeds R9,5billion.
Ports
Transnet facilities: C+
Overall assessment: “Inadequate budgets, rather than wilful neglect or inadequate skills and experience, have been the main underlying cause of infrastructure deterioration, ageing and obsolescence, where these are experienced.”
Transport parastatal Transnet owns several ports through its business units. Only one port scored less than “good” in the port engineers’ annual infrastructure report conducted for the National Ports Authority.
Much port infrastructure is ageing, but maintained in an serviceÂable condition.
Rail network
Heavy-haul freight lines: B
General freight lines: C
Uneconomical general freight lines: E
Passenger lines: D+
Transnet subsidiary Spoornet controls the heavy-haul and general freight lines, comprising most of the 20Â 000km rail network. High revenue from the heavy-haul freight lines allows for high maintenance standards.
General freight lines require upgrading to cope with increased traffic, but infrastructure has declined because of insufficient spending and a reduced skills base following the rationalisation of Spoornet.
The South African Rail Commuter Corporation owns the passenger lines, which have deteriorated because of indifferent maintenance, a diminishing skills base, theft and limited funding. The network will receive R1,5billion over the next five years for improvement.
Electricity
Eskom’s generating and bulk transmission capacity: C+
Eskom’s local distribution networks: C+
Municipal distribution in major urban areas: C-
Municipal distribution in other areas: D-
South Africa has inadequate excess capacity, with peak demand standing at more than 35Â 000MW and generating capacity at only 40Â 000MW. Capacity will be strained if the economy grows at an anticipated 4% until new base-load stations come on stream in 2011.
Power-hungry coastal cities and Gauteng are exposed to the risk of transmission failure, as more than 90% of electricity is generated in coal-fired power stations, mostly in Mpumalanga.
In 2004, the replacement cost of power distribution infrastructure was estimated at R84billion.
Hospitals and clinics
Hospitals: C
Clinics: D+
Overall assessment: “Thanks to good programme planning and targeted investment, health facilities in some provinces have improved over the past 10 years (for example, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo), while there is strong evidence to suggest that their condition is deteriorating in others.”
The replacement cost of all hospitals and clinics is estimated at more than R100billion. Provincial governments spend less on maintenance than the international norm, estimated at 4% of the replacement cost a year.
Hospital equipment has deteriorated, resulting in unacceptably high rates of equipment failure and shorter service lives.
Most provinces have not audited their health facilities and the last nationwide survey was 10 years ago.
Some provinces have failed to reduce their maintenance backlog for reasons that include poorly built facilities, inadequate maintenance budgets, inadequate skills and experience in developing maintenance programmes and problems between the institutions responsible for maintenance, often the public works and health departments.