Media Release: Rural Roads Asset Management Systems Grant Annual Meeting

For Immediate Release
21 May 2021

On Wednesday, 5 May 2021, Roads Services Representatives from National Government, the five (5) District Municipalities in the Western Cape and local municipalities within the Garden Route District gathered for the quarterly Rural Roads Asset Management System (RRAMS) meeting at Oubaai in George.

Over the past ten years, the RAMS (Roads Asset Management System) Conditional Grant has been used in South Africa to transfer funding to provinces and district municipalities (with preference to those in the rural areas), to achieve national government policy objectives. Furthermore, to ensure efficient and effective investment in municipal roads by developing road asset management systems (RAMS) through the collection and analysis of data.  

With the above in mind, the primary purpose of the RRAMS Grant as stipulated in the Division of Revenue Bill is to assist district municipalities in setting up rural RAMS and collecting road, bridges, and traffic data on municipal road networks in line with the Road Infrastructure Strategic Framework for South Africa.

As part of the National Government’s strategy to capacitate GRDM to fulfil the RAMS function in-house, four (4) contract positions were created and filled by two Civil Engineering graduates, a GIS operator and an Administration Assistant. GRDM also purchased two (2) Toyota LDV bakkies valued at R433 163.00 each, which will be utilised by the newly appointed RRAMS personnel.

On Wednesday, 18 May 2021, the Garden Route District Municipality Executive Mayor Alderman Memory Booysen, and the Municipal Manager, Mr Monde Stratu, received the two (2) bakkies during a small handover ceremony.  The Portfolio Chairperson of Roads and Transport Planning Services, Cllr Rowan Spies, and the Executive Manager:  Roads and Transport Planning Services, Mr John Daniels, also attended the ceremony. The Roads department will manage these assets.