By: Dibolelo Mance

In 2019 the President of the Republic, His Excellency Matamela Ramaphosa expanded the scope of responsibilities for a department that was originally known to South Africa as Public Works and added Infrastructure. Since then, the call to servitude has come with the recognition that our mandate extends far beyond building roads, bridges, and clinics-it is fundamentally about advancing human rights and ensuring that rural development is tangible, inclusive, and felt in the daily lives of our people.  

Across the Free State and the country at large, there is a growing frustration, particularly among the youth, that development remains distant and uneven. This sentiment is justified. Too often, infrastructure delivery has been undermined by inefficiencies, delays, corruption, and a failure to integrate seamlessly with broader developmental programmes.

The result is a gap between policy and lived reality, where access to education, healthcare, housing, and economic opportunity seems like a distant dream, and the promise of human rights is yet to be fully realised in every community. 

Our mandate is clear: infrastructure must be the backbone of rural development. More so in a Province considered to be the bread basket of the country wherein every connecting road is significant to the delivery of any and every staple need to the less fortunate. Without the full compliment of infrastructure in rural communities, the most vulnerable, the youth and society at large is disconnected from opportunity and alienated from their full human potential.

As a politician, I view this alienation not only as a social challenge but as a moral and political imperative. Karl Marx’s theory of alienation highlights the estrangement of individuals from their own humanity within hierarchical systems-a reality that resonates in our rural communities, where historical inequities continue to shape access to basic services and opportunities. To truly address the alienation of our citizens, infrastructure must not be delivered in isolation; it must be strategically aligned with human development initiatives, ensuring that investments translate into dignity, mobility, and empowerment. 

Infrastructure provision is inseparable from the realisation of human rights. Every school built, clinic upgraded, or road constructed is a step toward ensuring that citizens can access their constitutional rights. When infrastructure delivery is poorly coordinated, it risks reinforcing exclusion rather than alleviating it. We must therefore adopt a human rights-centred approach, where development decisions prioritize the needs of communities, particularly those historically marginalized by race, gender, disability, or geography.

 Infrastructure is not simply a technical solution-it is a moral obligation and a tangible measure of social justice. As we broaden our understanding of Infrastructure this Human Rights Day, it is as vital to prioritise access to services through effectively managed and maintained state-used and owned properties. These edifices house government’s machinery, men and women whose rights we are mindful of in our quest to build a capable state.

March 21, Human Rights Day, reminds us that our responsibilities as leaders extend beyond policy documents and budgets. It is a day to reflect on the tangible impact of our decisions on the lives of ordinary South Africans. Whether a young artisan whose life has been greatly altered by the permanent employment recently received through some of the departmental programmes or the children of Xhariep who will benefit from the recently completed Orangekraag Combined School, every decision must be a strategic brick for the road we are paving ahead of us.

Our rural development programmes must work hand-in-hand with infrastructure delivery, creating integrated, sustainable systems that empower citizens and realize their rights. We are accountable not only to legislation and governance standards but to the people whose dignity, potential, and futures depend on our capacity to plan, deliver, and oversee infrastructure that truly serves them. 

Past the commemoration of Human Rights Day, we must reaffirm our commitment: to ensure that every road, clinic, and school is not just built, but strategically placed, effectively maintained, and fully integrated into a development framework that leaves no community behind. Human rights, rural development, and infrastructure provision must operate seamlessly, for only then can we truly claim progress, and only then can our citizens live free from the alienation of the human condition.

About the author

Dibolelo Mance is the MEC for Free State Department of Public Works and Infrastructure