By Zandisile Luphahla:
Dr Saul’s 2026 State of the Province Address and President Ramaphosa’s SONA are not simply aligned – they are two parts of the same bold national project. As the Department of Roads and Public Works, we are proud to be at the centre of delivering that project for the people of the Northern Cape.
There are moments in governance when everything comes into alignment – when a national vision and a provincial plan speak in the same language, point in the same direction, and call upon the same institutions to deliver. The 2026 State of the Nation Address by President Cyril Ramaphosa and the 2026 State of the Province Address by Dr. Zamani Saul represent exactly such a moment for the Northern Cape.
The Northern Cape Department of Roads and Public Works does not merely observe this alignment from the sidelines. We are among its primary implementers. Roads are the arteries through which mines reach ports, through which farmers reach markets, through which citizens reach opportunity. Public works is the discipline through which government translates budgets into built environments and visions into verified deliverables.
Standing before a packed Bergsig Sports Ground in Springbok, in the heart of the Namakwa District, the very cradle of South Africa’s copper and diamond heritage, Dr Saul delivered a SOPA that was not merely a provincial report card but a strategic development declaration. It was, in every important respect, the Northern Cape’s answer to the national call President Ramaphosa had issued two weeks earlier.
ROADS AND INFRASTRUCTURE: Government is Building and Will Keep Building
President Ramaphosa’s 2026 SONA committed more than R1 trillion to public infrastructure spending over the medium term, the largest such allocation in our democratic history. This is a government that understands that you cannot build a modern economy on deteriorating roads, unreliable water systems, and landlocked corridors.
Dr Saul confirmed in his SOPA that road infrastructure is a critical enabler for the province, and we are proud to stand behind that statement with concrete action. The Northern Cape manages 26,530 kilometres of provincial road network, an extraordinary responsibility for a province of this size and geography.
Under Dr Saul’s leadership, the Department made meaningful progress in transferring an additional 650 kilometres of key strategic economic roads to the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral). This is not a retreat from responsibility; it is a strategic decision that ensures roads critical to mining logistics and agricultural supply chains receive the sustained, nationally-backed investment they deserve.
The Boegoebaai Harbour and Special Economic Zone is the crown jewel of Dr Saul’s infrastructure vision, and as a department, we understand what it means for roads. A functioning deep-water port without world-class road and rail connectors is a facility without a hinterland.
The Department is committed to ensuring that the Northern Cape Industrial Corridor and its linkages to Boegoebaai are supported by a road network that can carry the weight of this province’s ambitions. Progress made in partnership with Transnet is encouraging, and we are determined to build the landside infrastructure that makes the harbour’s promise real.
President Ramaphosa’s SONA placed significant emphasis on the revitalization of ports, the modernization of logistics networks, and the crowding-in of private capital through blended finance. Dr Saul’s SOPA translates that national framework into precise provincial priorities. The Boegoebaai SEZ, the Namakwa Special Economic Zone, and the Kathu Industrial Park are not isolated projects; they are nodes in a connected provincial economy, and roads are the connective tissue.
The Department of Roads and Public Works is building that tissue.
We also acknowledge, as Dr Saul did with characteristic honesty, that the state of local government infrastructure, namely, water and sanitation, electricity, roads, and human settlements, requires urgent and sustained attention.
The Municipal 10-Point Plan adopted under Dr Saul’s guidance sets out the right priorities: disciplined financial management, improved billing systems, and accelerated infrastructure maintenance. Our department is a partner in this turnaround. We bring technical capacity, project management experience, and a deep knowledge of provincial infrastructure needs to the municipalities that need our support most.
The R2.5 billion investment into the Vaal Gamagara Water Supply Scheme and the planned R2.5 billion directed to the Vaalputs Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility, the only nuclear waste management facility on the African continent, further illustrate a government that thinks in generational terms. We commend President Ramaphosa and Dr Saul for this long-horizon thinking, and we are proud to support the public works dimensions of these landmark projects.
MINING AND MINERALS: Roads That Unlock a Sunrise Industry
President Ramaphosa’s description of mining as a ‘sunrise industry’ in the 2026 SONA was not a rhetorical flourish. South Africa’s ore reserves are valued at over R40 trillion, and the Industrial Development Corporation’s commitment of more than R300 million to the Frontier Rare Earths Project in the Northern Cape demonstrates that the national government is putting resources behind that conviction. We are proud to serve a province at the centre of this mineral renaissance.
Dr Saul’s SOPA confirmed what we in the province have always known: the Northern Cape’s mineral wealth, iron ore, manganese, diamonds, copper, zinc, rare earths, and a growing battery minerals pipeline is the engine of this economy. Dr Saul’s vision moves boldly beyond raw extraction towards beneficiation, value-added manufacturing, and full participation in global critical minerals supply chains. This vision requires infrastructure. It requires roads that can carry heavy mining equipment to remote sites, industrial parks connected to national freight corridors, and public works programs that build the facilities in which beneficiation happens.
The Kathu Industrial Park at the centre of the Gamagara Mining Corridor, and the Namakwa SEZ in Aggeneys, are investments that our department is helping to enable through supportive road infrastructure. We note with pride that Minister of Mineral and Petroleum Resources Gwede Mantashe attended Dr Saul’s SOPA in person, a powerful signal that the national government regards the Northern Cape’s mineral economy as a matter of the highest national priority. We are aligned with that priority, and we will build the roads, the logistics corridors, and the public facilities to support it.
President Ramaphosa’s SONA commitment to a new, modern, and transparent mining rights system is exactly the kind of enabling national policy that unlocks the Northern Cape’s potential. Paired with Dr Saul’s provincial investment framework, it creates the conditions for the Frontier Rare Earths Project, the manganese corridor, and the hydrogen economy ambitions, anchored by the SASOL pre-feasibility study, to move from planning to production. We will be there every step of the way, ensuring the physical infrastructure exists to support every investment decision.
AGRICULTURE: Building Roads That Feed the Nation
In a province more commonly associated with mining, agriculture is in fact the Northern Cape’s largest employer. Dr Saul reaffirmed this proudly in his SOPA and outlined concrete steps to develop the sector’s human capital, market access, and productive capacity.
As the Department of Roads and Public Works, we understand our role in agriculture perhaps more intimately than any other department: a farmer who cannot get produce to market on time, because of a potholed road or a washed-out bridge, is a farmer whose livelihood is undermined by the government’s own infrastructure failures.
We are committed to ensuring that the Northern Cape’s agricultural regions, the raisin farms of the Gariep River basin, the citrus orchards of Upington, and the livestock operations of the Karoo are served by roads that work. The provincial government’s partnership with the Vine Academy and Model Farm in Kakamas is a welcome investment in human capital, but human capital must move through physical infrastructure. Skills without roads are stranded assets.
President Ramaphosa’s SONA commitment to improved agricultural logistics, rural supply chains, and expanded export markets is fully supported by our departmental priorities. We note with particular significance President Ramaphosa’s declaration of foot-and-mouth disease as a national disaster, with a dedicated monitoring task team, a response that demonstrates the seriousness with which this government treats the vulnerability of South Africa’s agricultural sector. For the Northern Cape, where livestock farming is a way of life across millions of hectares, this protection matters enormously.
The Boegoebaai Harbour, when realized, will transform the Northern Cape’s agricultural export capacity. Citrus from the Orange River, niche products from the Succulent Karoo, and processed agricultural goods from the province’s emerging agro-processing sector will have direct global access, bypassing the congestion and cost of existing ports. The Department of Roads and Public Works is committed to building the road linkages between agricultural production zones and the Boegoebaai corridor, so that when the harbour opens, our farmers are ready to use it.
A Province Aligned, a Government That Delivers
Read together, President Ramaphosa’s 2026 SONA and Dr Saul’s 2026 SOPA present the most coherent and ambitious development framework the Northern Cape has seen in a generation. President Ramaphosa’s national commitments, R1 trillion in infrastructure, critical minerals beneficiation, agricultural logistics modernization, and a capable developmental state, find their most direct provincial expression in Dr Saul’s agenda for the Boegoebaai Harbour, the Namakwa SEZ, the Kathu Industrial Park, the Vaal Gamagara Water Scheme, and the Municipal 10-Point Plan.
We are proud, as the Department of Roads and Public Works, to be an instrument of this aligned agenda. We are not a passive recipient of policy; we are an active builder of its outcomes. Every kilometre of road rehabilitated, every public building constructed, every infrastructure project delivered on time and within budget is a demonstration that this government means what it says. President Ramaphosa and Dr Saul have given us a clear mandate. We intend to honour it.
The positioning of the Northern Cape as South Africa’s New Growth Front is not a slogan. It is a strategic reality grounded in mineral wealth, renewable energy dominance, agricultural diversity, and a government that has chosen to invest decisively. We account for 60 per cent of the country’s renewable energy projects.
Our mining sector anchors national export earnings. Our agriculture feeds and employs communities across a geography the size of many countries. This province is not on the periphery of South Africa’s future; it is its frontier.
We Are Building the Northern Cape That Works for All
President Ramaphosa’s vision of a capable, ethical and developmental state and Dr Saul’s vision of a modern, growing and successful province, captured in the inspiring tagline ‘A Northern Cape That Works for All’ , are visions we in the Department of Roads and Public Works carry into every project, every contract, and every community we serve.
We build roads so that mines can export. We build roads so that farmers can deliver. We build public facilities so that communities have spaces of dignity and service. We maintain infrastructure so that investment decisions made today are protected for the generations that follow. This is the work of public works. This is our contribution to the New Growth Front.
We congratulate Dr Saul on a SOPA that is both visionary and grounded, and we commend President Ramaphosa for a SONA that gives provinces like ours the national framework and the national resources to realize their full potential. The alignment between our national and provincial leadership is a source of strength. We will not waste it.
The Northern Cape is ready. The roads are being built. The province is open for business and the Department of Roads and Public Works will make sure it stays that way.
Zandisile Luphahla is the Spokesperson for the Northern Cape Department of Roads and Public Works. – @NewsSA_Online
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