OVER the past two years the eThekwini Roads Rehabilitation Department has failed to have a contract in place to resurface roads in the North Central Region of the city, meaning that hundreds of kilometres of roads are now past their lifespan and are in desperate need of rehabilitation.
According to Ward 31 councillor, Chris Pappas, the municipality uses a formula to decide which roads get resurfaced every financial year.
The formula works on a rotational basis meaning that every road in the city will eventually be resurfaced.
However, Pappas said some of the roads that were meant to be resurfaced in ward 31 in 2017, including Butcher Road, Clifton Place, Crompton Gardens, Hammersmith Avenue, Jesmond Road, Lanercost Avenue, Morgan Grove, Newcombe Place, South Road, and West Cross Road were never resurfaced.
“I did not receive the list for 2018, and it would be equally as long. This is just the list for 2017 for ward 31. The entire region is without a contract in place, meaning a number of other wards are in the same position,” he said.
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Pappas explained that the municipality had two departments that dealt with roads – Roads and Stormwater Maintenance – which primarily deals with daily maintenance issues such as potholes, reinstatements and minor repair work, and Roads Rehabilitation which deals with the construction of new roads and major repair work considered under capital expenditure.
He said the City used a system called the Pavement Management System (PMS) which generated an optimised list of projects to be undertaken over the next two years, taking into account budget provisions.
Detailed inspections of all roads in eThekwini Municipality are conducted every two years with technical information captured into the PMS. Pappas said inspections to generate projects for the next two years have only recently been concluded.
“At times roads become more expensive to continuously maintain than they are to resurface entirely. This is the case with Randles Road, Hammersmith Avenue, West Cross and a number of others. For the past two years I have been in constant written communication with senior management at the Engineering Department. When I learned that the issues were with the procurement department I approached the head of procurement to enquire why the appointment of contractors was taking so long. Shortly after that the process concluded and a contractor was appointed. There was then an objection against the appointed contractor and the process halted. Currently, there is no contractor in place. I am still in contact with the relevant officials but there is no solution forthcoming other than to continue waiting,” said Pappas.
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He said there were no plans to catch up with the work missed over the past two years and no indication of how the budget that was allocated to these areas had been reprioritised.
“The deteriorating state of the roads is a cause for concern because the cost to resurface these roads is compounded as more roads are added to the list with every year that goes past without work being done. The cost to maintain the deteriorating road surfaces is increasing and the safety of road users is being compromised as roads reach the end of their lifespan,” said Pappas.
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