Farmers who fix their own damaged dirt roads can – in terms of a specific court order – now send the bill to the government, says a Daily Dispatch report. Yesterday the Eastern Cape High Court (Grahamstown) ordered the Eastern Cape Roads and Public Works Department to immediately begin implementing plans to repair and maintain its extensive and largely dysfunctional rural road network.

The judgment sets out the conditions under which farmers can themselves arrange to have damaged gravel roads repaired and then bill the government for the work done. AgriEC's Doug Stern hailed the judgment as a massive victory for rural and farming communities and said it was likely to set a tough precedent for other provinces.

In court papers, the department objected, indicating it believed this would ‘hand over to farmers a significant portion of the department’s budget bypassing normal procurement procedures’. But Judge Judith Roberson said she had deliberately built in enough safeguards to avoid this happening. She set out in detail the conditions in which farmers can perform work on roads they use for farming activities and then bill the government.

It includes that where urgent repair to a farm road was warranted the farmer should notify the department that it should inspect the road within 30 days. If it did not do so, the farmer could then obtain two independent quotes from civil contractors and proceed with the work.

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