Pretoria - Technical teams have been deployed to Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the North West provinces to assess road infrastructure damaged by heavy rains earlier this month.
During his visit to Mpumalanga to assess the damage caused by flooding on Monday, Transport Minister Sibusiso Ndebele said they would provide the necessary support and assistance to help the flood stricken provinces repair the damaged roads.
"We already have technical teams deployed in Mpumalanga, Limpopo and the North West to assess the extent of damage and to hand us a report before the end of this week.
"We are going all out to ensure that we render all the necessary support and assistance to provinces to ensure that road infrastructure damaged by extreme weather conditions is repaired."
Ndebele said together with National Treasury and the affected provinces, they wanted to ensure that all the resources of the state were mobilised so that the lives of those affected returned to normal as soon as possible.
"R240 million has been allocated in the current financial year to provinces through the Transport Disaster Management Grant to repair road infrastructure, including bridges and sections of online road infrastructure, damaged by floods in 2010/11.
"These funds are distributed to provinces based on the assessment of flood damage by the National Disaster Management Centre," he said.
Following storms and flooding earlier this month, five municipalities in the Ehlanzeni District of Mpumalanga have been declared disaster areas. These are Mbombela, Nkomazi, Umjindi, Thaba Chweu and Bushbuckridge.
According to provincial officials, major infrastructure including roads, bridges, schools and agriculture installations were also damaged. The cost to repair infrastructure is estimated at R445.7 million.
Rebuilding roads and bridges is set to be the most expensive at an estimated cost of R266 million.
On Saturday, Mpumalanga police reported that three children drowned while crossing a river in Balfour on their way home from school.
The river was swollen and fast flowing after recent heavy rains in the province. The police reported that a total of 10 children have drowned in the province in the last two weeks.
