Infrastructure and Maitenance

INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT, UPGRADE AND MAINTENANCE

“… looking after both old and new infrastructure is a challenge and an opportunity …”

Infrastructure maintenance must be regarded as a strategic tool to promote improved service delivery, to unlock funding to extend

infrastructure to historically disadvantaged communities, and to support the nation's economy. Maintenance of existing infrastructure

should not be seen as of secondary importance to the apparently more attractive prospect of new infrastructure.

The cost of not maintaining infrastructure is no longer affordable to Protected Areas Management. Maintaining infrastructure comes at a cost, but this is a prudent investment which will save Protected Areas Management significantly in the medium to long term and will promote both economic and human capital development.

The cost of maintenance of an infrastructure asset is very much determined not just by the size, nature, capacity etc of that infrastructure, but by

how well it was designed, materials specified and used, the quality of construction, etc. Generally, at least half of the lifetime cost of an infrastructure asset must be borne after it has been commissioned. In other words, the cost of planning, design and construction of the asset is

invariably less than half, sometimes even less than 20%, of the lifetime cost. Decisions are nevertheless frequently taken in order to "save

cost" at planning, design or construction stage, despite it often being possible to show that these increase costs of operation, through the life of that asset, that far exceed the initial "saving". It might for example be that the choice of less durable construction materials is the direct cause, later, of having to prematurely refurbish or even replace the infrastructure. Or savings on the robustness of foundations later manifest themselves in damage to the infrastructure that has been placed on those foundations.

Life-cycle asset management means considering...