Tshwane Municipality says it need R58bn to meet infrastructure demands

The Tshwane Municipality said it needs R58 billion to meet its infrastructure demands; however, at its current rate of investment, it will take 34 years to meet the target.

The capital’s aging infrastructure has once again come under the spotlight following news reports of the city’s exorbitant spending on water tankers.

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At a media briefing on Thursday, the municipality committed to decreasing its reliance on water tankers.

For the Tshwane Municipality to decrease its reliance on water tankers, it needs steady infrastructure.

However, water outage incidents continue to increase across the city and, in turn, forcing the municipality to rely more on water tankers to execute its constitutional obligation of supplying water.

Tshwane Mayor Nasiphi Moya said that aging infrastructure and vandalism were at the root cause of the issue.

"We mapped out that in the next 10 years, we need R58 billion to meet our infrastructure development demand and when we looked at how much we are investing in the next MTREF [Medium Term Revenue and Expenditure Framework], it will take us 34 years to meet a 10-year demand."

Moya said that with the metro’s population growing at a rapid rate, there was a greater demand on the municipality’s infrastructure.