NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
FOR WRITTEN REPLY
QUESTION NO 3551
DATE REPLY SUBMITTED: Friday, 02 December 2011
DATE OF PUBLICATION IN INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER: FRIDAY, 11 NOVEMBER 2011 (INTERNAL QUESTION PAPER: NO 38- 2011)
Mr M S F de Freitas (DA) asked the Minister of Transport:
(1) Whether his department or any entities reporting to him has been affected by the shortage of bitumen; if so, (a) to what extent in each case and (b) what steps have been taken to mitigate the effects of this shortage;
(2) whether any projects were affected as a result of the shortage of bitumen; if so, what (a) projects and (b) was the cost to his department? NW4257E
REPLY:
The Minister of Transport:
(1) Yes.
(a) The South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL), the Department of Transport's roads agency that accounted for 70% of the road bitumen usage in South Africa during 2010, is severely affected by the shortage of bitumen.
(b) Various steps have been taken to address the short, medium and long term implications of the shortage of bitumen:
The Department of Transport (DoT) and SANRAL have been actively engaging with the Department of Energy in an attempt to highlight to them the various problems related to the supply of bitumen from the existing refineries in South Africa and to find solutions for the medium to long term.
SANRAL has also been actively engaging with the road construction industry to directly import bitumen from overseas to overcome the local short term supply constraints. In this regard the first ship load was due on 18 November 2011 in South Africa, and the success of this initiative will determine the future direction to be adopted with regard to direct importation of bitumen by the road construction industry, including the role of other Government departments responsible for aspects such as import duties.
(2) Yes, projects were affected by the shortage of bitumen.
(a) SANRAL has a growing list of construction projects (currently 35) country-wide that are affected to various degrees by the shortage of bitumen, i.e. on some projects contractors could only work for three days a week during October 2011, and on other projects no bitumen related work was at all possible during October 2011.
(b) The implication of the shortage of bitumen is that projects are delayed and not completed as per the original project plan, and as a result contractors need to be given extension of time, which causes further delays to the completion of the projects. Based on the latest forecasts, indications at this stage are that for the 2011/12 financial year, more than R1 billion worth of work will not be able to be completed by contractors on SANRAL projects as per the original project plans due to the bitumen shortage.
Issued by Parliament, December 6 2011
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