One of South Africa’s biggest provinces says no more to shoddy roadworks

KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) has vowed to blacklist contractors who abandon or fail to meet their contractual obligations.

MEC for Transport and Human Settlements, Siboniso Duma, highlighted that one of the areas in which contractors regularly disappoint is road infrastructure.

He thus vowed to “name and shame” these businesses and to recover monies from contractors who abandoned road construction projects or failed to complete them on time.

“A lot of blame, at times rightly so, has been placed at the feet of the department as the custodian of public transportation,” said Duma.

“However, the reality is that we have contractors who are failing to honor their contracts, and it is time that we, as the department, name and shame these contractors.”

On its front, the KZN Department of Transport acknowledged that it, too, played a part in contractors not fulfilling their contractual duties.

Duma said there have recently been challenges with supplier payments due to budgetary constraints as the financial year wound up.

He also said that there were delays with payments to some contractors in the past weeks owing to technical glitches in the Basic Accounting System.

The National Treasury implemented a new version of the Standard Chart of Accounts (SCOA V6) on 1 April 2025, replacing SCOA V5 which had been in place since 2017.

“We want to assure you that, working with National Treasury and Provincial Treasury, we have taken immediate steps to address these technical issues and prevent future occurrences,” said Duma.

“However, it must be noted that challenges faced by contractors, whom we will be naming and shaming today, predate all these issues.”

The KZN Department of Transport recently tabled a R13-billion budget, of which R9.2 billion is earmarked for transport infrastructure.

Of this, around R3.8 billion will be spent constructing new infrastructural projects, while R4.3 billion is going towards road maintenance.

Over R102 million is being allocated on infrastructure planning and design, with R927 million being funneled to support programmes within transport infrastructure.

In addition, R216 million will be put towards pothole patching and the procurement of 25 purpose-built pothole repair trucks.

The department has also appointed more than 100 road worker aides and foremen to be on the line in its fight against potholes.

“We believe that continuing to invest the bulk of our budget into maintenance of existing surfaced and gravel roads is the correct thing to do,” said Duma.

“It is thus prudent that we see outputs given the above monies and resources that we are investing.”

R4.6 billion down the drain

The scale of KZN’s road infrastructure backlog warrants the province to take a hard line against contractors who fail to finish projects on time, said Duma.

The department has a total of 39 construction and 44 rehabilitation/resealing projects currently running.

Between these projects, an alarming 30 contractors from Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) grade 6 to grade 9 are failing to adhere to their obligations.

The number of defaulting contractors per grade are:

“Projects managed by these contractors have stalled, with some having been abandoned,” said Duma.

“There are instances where projects, including site establishment, have not even commenced.”

To date, the cost of these delays has ballooned to a staggering R4.6 billion.

Contractors at these levels should have sufficient experience to handle the big construction projects awarded to them.

“However, what we are finding is that at the adjudication and award stages, the contractors might have been active on CIDB,” said Duma.

“However, when their status is currently being reviewed, they either have no record of being registered, show lower grades, or have been suspended.”

In the province’s engagement with the contractors, it also found that most of them had a lack of resources, in particular cash flow challenges.

Another common hurdle cited was that the scope creep tended to increase once contractors were established onsite.

Concerningly, Duma said that long-established contractors with years of experience in the construction industry are the ones who are failing the province the most.

“The so-called established contractors are taking on too many projects at once, which, in the long run, has a knock-on effect on all projects they are working on,” said Duma.

During a meeting last Friday, the KZN Department of Transport agreed with select contractors on clear timelines for when projects must be finished.

The department has implemented various monitoring measures to keep tabs on these jobs, and contractors who fail to adhere to the new timelines will be let go.

It has also identified contractors who it believes won’t be able to complete any projects in the foreseeable future, and has started the process of terminating them.

“In addition, we will follow the necessary laws to blacklist them from working for the department, which can be up to a maximum of ten years,” said Duma.

The department will be following the necessary steps and protocols within the prescripts of the law to recover funds as a result of the failures of these service providers.

It will also strengthen its supply chain processes to avoid a repeat of such situations.

“This includes a thorough vetting of any contractor before hiring them to check if they have the requisite capacity,” said Duma.

Henceforth, no contractor working for the KZN Department of Transport and will have a monopoly over projects, either.

“There are contractors with many projects, which has resulted in them failing to deliver on all projects concurrently,” said Duma.

“It is very clear that they have bitten off more than they can chew.”

The Department initially planned to publish the name of companies involved in projects that are delayed.

However, it was advised by its legal team not to publish at this stage as there are legal processing being undertaken to terminate their services.