PRETORIA ROAD UPDATE: City Times meets officials on site and leaves with “no thorough answer”
Local business owners present at the meeting shared concerns about drastic drops in business turnover.
The Pretoria Road roadworks project could only reach completion in June next year.
This is according to metro officials who the City Times met with onsite today (October 31).
Metro project managers for the Ekurhuleni East Rand Region Vusi Mathibela and Nape Seopela said this is how long it could take to finish the roadworks, following the latest deadline, October 12, not being met by the contractor.
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No work has taken place on the road since this date.
When questioned about penalties, which the metro promised would be meted out if this deadline was not met, the project managers said: “We couldn’t go ahead with the penalties as there is a dispute and this first needs to be resolved.”
The project, which commenced in February, has been plagued by delays and disputes between the main contractor, Boitshoko Road Surfacing and Civil Works (Pty) Ltd, and the sub-contractor, Nkozi (only company name provided to the City Times by the metro officials).
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Mathibela said Nkozi claims to have been “defrauded” of around R900 000 by one of their own representatives.
It is alleged that other partners in the company then threatened to halt roadworks until they received this money back from the main contractor. The metro is considering paying R467 000 of this amount back to the sub-contractor as we believe this would be fair, as they are victims of criminal acts.
“The main cause of the delays in this project is criminal acts,” Mathibela said.
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“The decision regarding the payment is pending approval and a new contractor may even be appointed.”
The City Times posed several more pressing questions during the visit and officials were not forthcoming with clear answers on many of the issues, even stating at one point that there is “no thorough answer”.
For the full story of our visit to the site with metro officials, read next week’s edition of the Benoni City Times (dated November 8).
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