Minister Patricia De Lille to handover bridge to Ndwedwe Community in KwaZulu-Natal

On Monday 29 November 2021, Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, Patricia de Lille, along with the MEC for Transport Community Safety and Liaison in KwaZulu-Natal, Peggy Nkonyeni and other local leaders will officially handover a recently completed bridge in the Ndwedwe municipality in KwaZulu Natal.

The Welisizwe Rural Bridges Programme was gazetted as a Strategic Integrated Project in July 2020 as part of government’s Infrastructure Investment Plan approved by Cabinet in May 2020.

The Welisizwe Rural Bridges Programme is aimed at providing safe access to social amenities and further respond to potential disaster areas and emergency disaster situations.  It ensures that community members especially school children can have safe passage to amenities such as schools and clinics and prevents devastating drownings which often take place in rural areas without proper infrastructure. The intervention is done through the construction of Modular Steel Bridges.

The Department of Public Works & Infrastructure (DPWI) and Department of Defence & Military Veterans (DOD) entered into a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) on the implementation of Welisizwe Programme. Subsequently, the DPWI and the KZN Department of Transport entered into MOA on the implementation of Welisizwe Programme within KwaZulu-Natal province.

The KwaZulu-Natal province was identified as a key area for this intervention following inclement weather conditions caused by severe thunderstorm which resulted in adverse effects on both human life and property. DPWI and SANDF undertook technical assessments in the identified potential disaster sites in KwaZulu Natal and the KwaZulu Natal Department of Transport committed funds for the installation of the fourteen (14) bridges in KZN province. Teams from SANDF were deployed in 2020 with DPWI assisting in a coordinating role to install the bridges in the province.

Since April 2020, 11 of the 14 bridges have been completed in the KwaZulu-Natal Province at a cost of R103million.

The project also forms part of government’s Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan (ERRP) to provide much needed financial relief and provide jobs and opportunities to community members and local companies.

To date the project has created 420 jobs in the various areas in KwaZulu-Natal where the 11 bridges have been installed so far.

A number of local companies have also benefitted from the project through sub-contracting of goods and services during the installation of the bridges.

The programme is also contributing towards the skills development initiative as 23 graduates were appointed as part of the bridge assessment, project management team and maintenance team. These positions included engineers and candidate construction project managers.

Minister de Lille, MEC Nkonyeni and other local leaders will handover one of the recently competed bridges to the community.

The handover event details are as follows:
Date: Monday 29 November 2021
Time: 12:30pm
Location/Meeting point: Mona Bridge, Ndwedwe Municipality.

Directions from Inanda Police Station:

The use of GPS is important to locate Ndwendwe local municipality offices, but Traveling from Durban city centre take the Nanda Drive towards Inanda Police Station. On the circle next to the police station, take Ndwendwe/Mzinyathi area road. Drive straight until you get to Ndwendwe Municipality offices for about 1 kilometre until you get to Boxer store and turn left. From there you will see a sign board to Mona Bridge. The whole trip to the destination takes about 1 hour 30 minutes and it has both gravel and tarred sections of the road.

All media are welcome to attend and are kindly requested to confirm attendance to Zara Nicholson on 079 416 5996.

Source: Government of South Africa