Engineering News Online Audio Articles

In an ongoing dispute between chicken importers and local chicken farmers about lowering the prices of poultry products, trade movement FairPlay founder Francois Baird has challenged chicken importers to reveal their “substantial” profits and how much they have invested in expanding their industry and creating local jobs in South Africa.

Chicken importers, the Association of Meat Importers & Exporters (AMIE) have made calls for government to eliminate tariffs to enable them to import more volumes, stating that, with lower tariffs, the price of chicken on South African shelves would drop.

Baird notes that, for the past six years, chicken imports have averaged R6-billion a year.

“If chicken importers sold those consignments for only 10% more than they paid, and we think it is more because we believe their profits are substantial, then they are making R600-million a year, every year, for the past six years,” he states.

However, he questions what chicken importers have done with their profits for the local industry. “What have they done with R3.6-billion over the past six years? Expanded their business? Created South African jobs instead of buying imports which create jobs in Brazil and Europe? Or have they just enjoyed fat profits?”

Meanwhile, South African Poultry Association (SAPA) GM Izaak Breitenbach says, during negotiations for the Poultry Sector Master Plan, the local industry had committed to investment and expansion targets, and the creation of local jobs.

“The poultry industry has committed to investing R1.5-billion, of which R1.14-billion has already been completed. Most has already been spent on expanded production capacity,” he says.

As such, Breitenbach says efforts to revive South Africa’s poultry-producing sector have resulted in more than 1 300 jobs, with these figures being regularly reported to an oversight organisation and the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition which audits and verifies SAPA’s efforts.

Refuting claims by AMIE CEO Paul Matthew that poultry producers were making profits at the expense of the consumer, Breitenbach says a recent study by Genesis Analytics found that, for the past ten years, local poultry producers had not made enough profits to invest back into the industry.

He also dispels Matthew’s claim that chicken prices had risen by 17% in the past year, and his implication that producers were profiting while consumers suffered. In this regard, Breitenbach says poultry price increases have been forced by rising input prices, such as primarily for feed, and secondarily for transport and electricity.

Feed prices comprise 70% of chicken producer’s input costs, and therefore any increase in feed is going to have a negative impact on shelf prices.

“Feed prices went up by 20% and Brazil has raised chicken prices by 23%. Our increases are far lower than Brazil. Our industry is actively fighting [feed] price increases,” he states.

SMALL-SCALE VULNERABILITY

Amanda Mdodana – a small-scale chicken farmer based outside Middleburg in Mpumalanga, says that producing a chicken, from day one to day 42, for a small-scale farmer, costs about R38 to R40. “For us to sell a chicken for cheaper than that, which is what the imported chicken is doing, is almost impossible. It means that we would close down.”

She says the call for tariffs to be reduced or dropped “really worried” her and many other small-scale producers because such enterprises were already struggling to provide chicken that is competitively priced because of high input costs.

As a result of chicken dumping by importers in South Africa, Mdonda says she knows of 500 small-scale farmers, each employing a minimum of three people, who were at risk of closure as a result of deteriorating demand after failing to win over price-sensitive low-income consumers.

Baird, meanwhile, says scrapping tariffs will not benefit consumers, because the benefit will go to importers who have also not passed on the benefits of dumped chicken to consumers.

“Th...

A lack of preventive maintenance is by far the biggest contributor to the deterioration of the South African road network, says South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) engineering executive Louw Kannemeyer.

“It is purely because the infrastructure is not being maintained. And, because we don’t have a zero-maintenance design on our roads, we are seeing a rapid deterioration in the network.”

Kannemeyer adds that many South African roads are reaching the end of their design life, which means that they will be increasingly sensitive to a lack of maintenance.

South Africa has a proclaimed road network of more than 618 000 km.

Sanral is responsible for 22 262 km of the country’s roads at present. The agency’s network carries about 35% of yearly vehicle kilometres travelled in South Africa, but 70% of the long-distance road freight.

The rest of the country’s network falls under the ambit of provincial and municipal authorities.

It Doesn’t Pay to Do Nothing

Kannemeyer says there are two approaches to road maintenance.

The first is preventive maintenance. This is where Sanral, or a provincial or local authority, builds a road. Then, after seven to ten years, dependent on the climate and traffic, fine cracks develop, and the road surface must be waterproofed.

“To do that you need professionally qualified people,” says Kannemeyer. “You need engineers who understand what those cracks mean, who understand the climate of the area and the road design.”

If the relevant authority does not act to fix these cracks, secondary defects will likely develop after three to five years.

To repair the road will now cost six times more than what would have been the price tag to roll out the correct preventive maintenance, says Kannemeyer.

If left for five to eight years, fixing the road will now cost 18 times more, he notes.

“When a road is in a very poor condition, you don’t need to be an engineer to see that it’s in a poor condition,” says Kannemeyer.

“The reality we face is that a lot of authorities do not have professionals in their employ. The way [road] networks are currently being managed is to fix the worst first. [Authorities] wait for the road the most people complain about, and that is the one they’ll try and fix.”

However, following that strategy means that for every one kilometre of road repaired, the authority could have resealed 18 km of road, explains Kannemeyer.

“With the worst-first approach, the road cracks, and nothing gets done. Drains silt up, become blocked, and nothing gets done. The grass grows on the edge and it isn’t cut to allow the water to drain. Everybody then waits for potholes to develop.

“In the scenario of preventive maintenance, cracks are sealed, the grass is cut, the drains are cleaned – routine maintenance. That is a big focus area for Sanral.”

To cut grass and seal cracks cost about R9.50/m2 a year on average, says Kannemeyer.

“However, that buys you so much more in terms of asset life.”

Resealing costs are R70/m2 to R150/m2 every ten years.

To repair a pothole on a busy road is one of the most expensive exercises and can range from R700/m2 to R25 000/m2, says Kannemeyer.

The cost of accommodating traffic and closing lanes is ten times more than the actual repair work.

“You need to prevent the development of potholes at all costs – this is asset management,” says Kannemeyer. “And to do this, you need up-to-date data to ensure professionals can make informed decisions. At Sanral, we carefully track the deterioration of our roads.”

Cheaper Methods, so Maintenance Is Vital

When Sanral designs a road pavement, the agency does not design it for a number of calendar years, but rather for the traffic expected over the design period, which is typically 20 to 25 years.

Sanral will typically forecast the traffic over a 20-year period, says Kannemeyer, most notably the heavy-truck traffic.

This will determine the number of lanes – climbing lanes, passing lanes – and it will also dictate the kind of road pavemen...

There is insufficient demand for gas in the power sector to “anchor” demand for the fuel in the broader South African energy sector, as gas will have only a limited peaking support role in a system transitioning from coal to renewables, analysis by Meridian Economics shows.

Presented by Meridian’s Adam Roff this week, the analysis notes that gas-to-power’s anchor role was based on a position taken in the 2012 National Development Plan (NDP) that large-scale gas would be required to balance the “potentially higher costs” of variable renewable energy.

The NDP predated the “plunge” in the cost of wind and solar photovoltaic technologies, which have since emerged as the lowest-cost generation options.

“Gas was a viable alternative to coal, until a more viable alternative emerged,” Roff explained during a webinar hosted to discuss ‘The Role of Natural Gas as a Transitionary Fuel in Southern Africa’.

He warned that ignoring these new realities would prove costly, as its modelling showed that operating the 3 GW gas-to-power fleet included in the Integrated Resource Plan at a capacity factor of 50% to 55% would cost R5.7-billion more every year to produce 14.5 TWh, than deploying such plants as peakers, with a capacity factor of between 3% and 5%, in support of renewable generators.

Yearly emissions from the large-scale solution would also be far higher at 7.6-million tons, than the 1.1-million tons that would be produced from the peakers.

This emission differential, Roff said, had become increasingly important in light of South Africa’s updated Nationally Determined Contribution and aspiration to net zero emissions by 2050, which sets it on a decarbonisation trajectory that reduced the country’s carbon space by between 30% and 50% relative to its previous commitment.

Based on a peaker production profile, Meridian estimates that South Africa’s total gas demand from the power sector will be between 25 PJ and 40 PJ by 2030, and that only if all new and existing peaker plants, including Eskom and private open cycle gas turbines (OCGTs), are switched over to gas.

“This raises questions about the viability of liquefied natural gas (LNG) contracting, given that LNG suppliers typically require larger volumes.”

Meridian argues that South Africa should, therefore, adopt a cautious approach to gas, which is “no longer a transition fuel in the power sector” or a “rational replacement for coal”.

Gas could possibly replace some diesel at the OCGTs “on a path to hydrogen or other emission-free peaking technology”, but gas storage would have to be considered given that the volumes would be below the level required for regular LNG shipments.

Speaking during the same webinar, Boston Consulting Group’s Kesh Mudaly reported that an analysis it conducted for the National Business Initiative (NBI) concluded that gas would be required during the transition, but only in limited volumes in the electricity sector.

The NBI study shows that South Africa’s yearly gas demand could be between 230 PJ and 550 PJ by 2030, with much of that demand arising from the synthetic fuels sector, which is keen to displace coal with gas.

The analysis concludes that South Africa should opt for flexible and short payback LNG infrastructure to support a faster scale-up of renewables, but with a view to replacing gas with batteries and green hydrogen from 2030 onwards.

There were, however, likely to be benefits in switching the existing peaker plants from diesel to gas, which could yield cost savings of between R14-billion and R28-billion against capital expenditure and stranded-asset costs of about R10-billion.

African International Advisors’ Henry Gilfillan, who is working on a gas master plan for the Southern African Development Community, urged South Africa to adopt a regional perspective to the transition when assessing a role for gas in that transition.

He argued that low-cost gas-to-power projects built in northern Mozambique, for instance, could be unlocked through an in...

Creamer Media's Chanel de Bruyn speaks to Engineering News Editor Terence Creamer about the progress being made to advance the 100 MW reform and the efforts to simplify the registration process for these projects.

Despite electric car sales remaining strong this year, future growth will demand greater efforts to diversify battery manufacturing and critical mineral supply to reduce the risk of bottlenecks and price increases, says the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Sales of electric cars (including fully electric and plug-in hybrids) doubled in 2021 to a new record of 6.6-million units, with more now sold each week than in the whole of 2012 – this according to the latest edition of the IEA Global Electric Vehicle Outlook report.

The report shows that electric car sales kept rising strongly into this year, despite strains along global supply chains, with 2-million electric cars sold worldwide in the first quarter, up by three-quarters from the same period a year earlier.

The number of electric cars on the world’s roads by the end of 2021 was about 16.5-million – triple the amount in 2018.

In China, electric-car sales nearly tripled last year, to 3.3-million, accounting for about half of the global total.

Sales also grew strongly in Europe, where it increased by 65%, to 2.3-million units, and in the US, where it more than doubled, to 630 000 units.

Chinese electric cars are typically smaller than in other markets.

Alongside lower manufacturing costs, this has significantly reduced the price gap with traditional cars, notes the 2022 IEA Global Electric Vehicle Outlook report.

The median price of an electric car in China was only 10% more than that of conventional offerings, compared with 45% to 50% on average in other major markets.

By contrast, electric car sales are lagging in most emerging and developing economies, where only a few models are often available and at prices that are unaffordable for mass-market consumers.

Sustained policy support has been one of the main reasons for strong electric car sales in many markets, with overall public spending on subsidies and incentives doubling in 2021 to nearly $30-billion, says the IEA.

A growing number of countries have ambitious vehicle electrification targets for the coming decades, and many carmakers have plans to electrify their fleets that go beyond policy targets, adds the agency.

Five times more electric car models were available globally in 2021 than in 2015, and the number of available models reached 450 by the end of last year.

“Few areas of the new global energy economy are as dynamic as electric vehicles,” says IEA executive director Fatih Birol.

“The success of the sector in setting new sales records is extremely encouraging, but there is no room for complacency.

“Policy makers, industry executives and investors need to be highly vigilant and resourceful in order to reduce the risks of supply disruptions and to ensure sustainable supplies of critical minerals.”

Birol says the IEA is working with governments around the world on how to strategically manage resources of critical minerals that are needed for electric vehicles and other key clean energy technologies.

Obstacles

In the short term, the greatest obstacles to continued strong electric car sales are soaring prices for some critical minerals essential for battery manufacturing, as well as supply-chain disruptions caused by Russia’s attack on Ukraine and by continued Covid-19 lockdowns in some parts of China, notes the 2022 Global Electric Vehicle Outlook report.

In the longer term, greater efforts are needed to roll out enough charging infrastructure to service the expected growth in electric car sales.

Prices for lithium, a crucial mineral for car batteries, were more than seven times higher in May this year than at the start of 2021, while the prices for cobalt and nickel also increased.

All else being equal, the cost of battery packs could increase by 15% if these prices stay around current levels, which would reverse several years of improvement, notes the report.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created further pressures, since Russia supplies 20% of global battery-grade nickel.

Governments in Europe and in the ...

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has confirmed that it will implement the Operation Vulindlela recommendation that power purchase agreements (PPAs) should not be a requirement for registration of embedded generation projects below 100 MW.

The regulator tells Engineering News that it is currently following procedures to inform the Nersa governors of the change to the registration requirement for qualifying projects.

Nersa also confirmed that it is prioritising the automation of the registration process as part of a broader strategy to automate its business processes.

“This will ensure the much-needed investment in new generation capacity is added to the grid as soon as possible.

“This will also alleviate load-shedding being experienced in the country,” Nersa said in reply to questions posed by Engineering News.

The regulator has already committed to reducing its registration processing time from 60 to 45 days and has indicated that it plans to use automation to shorten the timeframe even further.

It recently took 73 days for the regulator to register two 100 MW solar photovoltaic projects, the first projects above 10 MW to be registered to date.

The projects, which are both located in the North West province, are being developed, financed, constructed and operated by the Sola Group for Tronox Mineral Sands.

Other smaller projects have been registered, however, with Nersa informing Engineering News that, for the year-to-date, it had registered 111 qualifying projects.

“Registrations are done every month during the Regulator Executive Meetings which are conducted twice monthly.”

CEO Advocate Nomalanga Sithole told Parliamentarians earlier this month that Nersa would continue to refine its regulatory practices and methodologies in a bid to become a recognised world-class leader in energy regulation.

She indicated, however, that shifting from manual to automated processes would require it to invest in its information and communication technology systems.

Nersa reports that the automation project is at a preliminary stage and that no budget has yet been set, or service provider appointed.

“No funding has been provided for, but the initial work will be insourced within Nersa.”

The decision to implement the Operation Vulindlela recommendation regarding PPAs is anticipated to help unlock an investment pipeline of more than 50 projects, with a combined energy generating potential of about 4 500 MW.

The Presidency’s project management office head Rudi Dicks has reported that Operation Vulindlela is seeking to remove obstacles to individual projects, as well as to address any remaining systemic constraints.

Besides addressing onerous registration requirements, attention is being given to reducing the time it takes to process environmental impact assessments and secure water-use licences, as well as to creating dedicated capacity in Eskom to process grid-connection applications more quickly.

Dicks told delegates to the Mpumalanga Energy Summit this week that he expected the “floodgates to open” on further project approvals.

The Automotive Industry Development Centre Eastern Cape (AIDC EC) has partnered with the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to roll out a Kaizen implementation programme aimed at improving the competitiveness of component suppliers within the province’s automotive industry.

Kaizen is a Japanese business philosophy that focuses on gradually improving productivity by involving all employees and by making the work environment more efficient. It focuses on quality and productivity improvement (QPI).

The aim is to capacitate suppliers to access new markets, attain international benchmarks and develop new business opportunities.

AIDC EC CEO Thabo Shenxane says the Eastern Cape accounts for about half of South Africa’s light vehicle exports, and 43% of the country’s light vehicle production.

The Eastern Cape also serves as the base for 42% of the National Association of Automotive Component and Allied Manufacturers’ directory of suppliers, and four of the country’s big vehicle manufacturers, namely Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Isuzu and Ford.

“We have great confidence that a Kaizen culture will have a profound impact on the future of automotive manufacturing in South Africa,” notes Shenxane.

Empirical results from Kaizen programmes at eight Tier 1 South African [component] manufacturers between 2016 and 2019, show that production more than doubled and that on-time delivery improved from 73% to 95%.

Overtime work, on average, also dropped from 13.8 hours a week to 4.6 hours a week, while lead times, on average, improved by 40%.

“The results clearly justify scaling up of the Kaizen philosophy in the automotive manufacturing sector,” says Shenxane.

“And, like JICA, we believe that South Africa can compete with India and Thailand’s automotive component industries, but we must agree on a common vision and plan for this to happen in our province.”

Shenxane says the AIDC EC will work closely with a range of stakeholders to implement the Kaizen rollout, including JICA, Toyota Wessels Institute for Manufacturing Studies (TWIMS), AIDC Gauteng, Naacam, naamsa | The Automotive Business Council, and the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition.

“The idea is to reach out to at least 120 Tier 2 and 3 component suppliers, over the next three years, in the Eastern Cape,” he notes.

SA Needs More Manufacturing

TWIMS executive director Dr Justin Barnes says fresh input is required to remedy the poor performance of South Africa’s manufacturing industry.

He says manufacturing dropped to 12% of South Africa’s economy in 2019, down from 17% in 2000 and 21% in 1990.

He adds that South Africa’s manufacturing sector employed more people in 1969 than it does today.

“If we had kept manufacturing at 1990 levels we would have employed over a million people more.’

“The sector is shedding jobs and becoming more capital intensive at a time of employment crisis.

“To achieve a high-income society, the driving force is manufacturing productivity and good jobs, whereas the economy is now welfare dependent.”

Barnes notes that the domestic auto industry has performed better than the manufacturing sector at large, increasing vehicle production from 376 000 units in 1995, to 632 000 in 2019, but that the “dark cloud is that local content has dropped”.

Gauteng Public Transport and Roads Infrastructure MEC Jacob Mamabolo has made public the preferred route for Phase 1 of the proposed expansion of the 80-km Gautrain system, in what is called the Gauteng Rapid Rail Integrated Network (GRRIN) project.

This route has been published in the Gauteng Provincial Gazette. This follows a consultative process which allowed affected parties the opportunity to make submissions regarding possible route options.

Determining the route alignment is the first step in defining a rail reserve for the future railway line. It establishes a corridor of 200 m on either side of the centreline of the determined route, with this corridor to become part of all local authority spatial planning processes.

This means that Mamabolo must be allowed to comment on all applications that are received by the City of Johannesburg for any land-use changes that fall within the determined route.

The next step in the process will be to undertake a preliminary design for

Phase 1 of the proposed GRRIN extension. This will include an environmental-impact assessment, as well as further consultation with all interested and affected parties.

“It is important to note that the route determination is an important milestone in the province’s rail planning process, and that we are still in the early stages of the process of defining the future rail reserve, [a process which] will be undertaken in consultation with all interested and affected parties and stakeholders,” says Mamabolo.

In 2014, the Gauteng provincial government commissioned the Gautrain Management Agency to develop a strategy to improve mobility in the Gauteng.

This strategy included a feasibility study to investigate possible extensions to the existing Gautrain rapid rail network in the province.

The published route for Phase 1 of GRRIN begins at the proposed location of a new station at Little Falls, which is located to the east of Hendrik Potgieter road, in Willowbrook.

From the proposed Little Falls station, the route runs in a north-easterly direction towards Zandspruit, where the line passes to the west of Jackal Creek Golf Estate.

The route then changes in a south-easterly direction towards Cosmo City and the proposed new Cosmo City station.

From the Cosmo City station, the route continues in a south-easterly direction towards the proposed new Randburg station, passing through North Riding, Olivedale, Bryanston and Ferndale.

The route then continues in a south-easterly direction through Randburg, Bordeaux, and Hurlingham.

Once it reaches Sandhurst, the line changes direction towards the existing Gautrain Sandton station, which will be upgraded substantially under the plans for GRRIN Phase 1.

From Sandton, the route runs in a north-easterly direction through Sandton, Sandown, Marlboro, and Alexandra, towards the existing Gautrain Marlboro station, which will also be upgraded to accommodate the new alignment.

South African energy and chemicals group Sasol has teamed up with Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) to lead a consortium of German and South African partners that will research and optimise the catalysts required to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) on a commercial scale through Fischer-Tropsch (FT) technology.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz presided over the launch of the research project dubbed ‘CARE-O-SENE’, or Catalyst Research for Sustainable Kerosene, at a function hosted at Sasol’s Sandton head office this week.

The project will be funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and Sasol and the other consortium partners are the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the University of Cape Town’s department of chemical engineering and Ineratec.

Separately, Sasol is partnering with Linde, Enertrag and Navitas in a bid to produce SAF, using green hydrogen and sustainable carbon dioxide sources, under Germany’s H2Global platform.

Sasol has indicated that it is initially aiming to produce 15 000 t/y of SAF at its Secunda operation, in Mpumalanga, before scaling up yearly production to 2.5-million tons.

CARE-O-SENE will run for three years with the goal of developing the catalysts – used to speed up chemical reactions, increase yield and improve fuel quality – required for large-scale commercialisation of ‘green kerosene’ production by 2025.

Sasol reports that the new FT catalysts are expected to increase the fuel yield of the process to over 80%.

Speaking at the CARE-O-SENE launch, Sasol CEO Fleetwood Grobler said the group’s expertise in FT technology and catalysts made it an ideal partner to help Germany and the world decarbonise the aviation sector and make it sustainable over the long term.

HZB Scientific MD Professor Dr Bernd Rech added that the research would enable accelerated innovation in a crucial field of green energy.

“This can only be achieved in a global partnership by deeply integrating fundamental research and technology development on an industry-relevant scale,” Rech said.

Public Works and Infrastructure Minister Patricia de Lille, during her budget vote speech to Parliament on May 24, emphasised the importance of building and maintaining infrastructure to support national economic development objectives.

"Infrastructure is vital for the wellbeing of our communities and to help grow our economy," she said.

The National Infrastructure Plan 2050 (NIP 2050), gazetted in March, is the long-term plan for infrastructure development across the country. It aims to ensure there is a long-term plan for infrastructure to drive economic and social transformation to achieve National Development Plan (NDP) goals and beyond, De Lille said.

South Africa’s NDP sets out clear economic development targets, which is further supported by the Infrastructure Investment Plan and the NIP 2050. The Infrastructure Investment Plan is central to the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan (ERRP), which is aimed at creating jobs, and has started bringing the construction industry back to life, she noted.

"Recent events have again laid bare the importance of infrastructure and ensuring that we not only build new infrastructure but maintain existing infrastructure. We must build and maintain infrastructure taking the severe impacts of climate change into consideration," she added.

"An additional R1.6-trillion in public sector infrastructure investment is required by 2030, over and above what is forecasted for current public sector entities. This will be achieved by, among other efforts, building private sector confidence in the capacity and capability of the State to deliver bankable public infrastructure projects," she said.

The Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) has started the implementation of the first three years of the NIP 2050.

It has also started with the drafting of the second phase of the NIP, which will focus on social infrastructure and related municipal services, as well as approaches to strengthening coordination through the District Development Model approach. This will be finalised in the 2022/23 financial year.

Further, Infrastructure South Africa (ISA) was established following approval by Cabinet in 2020 and is working to drive the Infrastructure Investment Plan through project unblocking, unlocking funding, and monitoring and reporting on the implementation of priority projects.

Meanwhile, the DPWI has been involved in five work streams and interventions to assist in the reconstruction efforts in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape to mitigate the effects of the recent flood disaster.

"A database of more than 300 built environment professionals has been made available to the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) to help assess, scope, cost, design and implement critical reconstruction and building of damaged infrastructure," De Lille said.

Departmental resources will focus on the current 53 government-owned buildings in KwaZulu-Natal and the 12 government-owned buildings in Eastern Cape which have been damaged by the floods to make them usable, she added.

"The department has also identified 258 land parcels, while the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Public Works and Human Settlements has identified a further 25 land parcels. These land parcels are being assessed for suitability for the resettlement of displaced communities by the Housing Development Agency.

Meanwhile, to date, 52 sites in KwaZulu-Natal in need of bridges have been identified. The construction of the first 18 bridges in KwaZulu-Natal is to commence from June 1.

In the Eastern Cape, technical assessments have been done at 20 bridge sites. DPWI has reassigned more capacity to assist the KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape Departments of Transport and affected municipalities.

Further, in terms of the State of the Nation commitments on the Welisizwe Rural Bridges programme, 96 bridges are planned for the 2022/23 financial year, De Lille said.

These will be built in the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, Limpop...