Queries after road sinkhole
Thankfully, no vehicles were using the lane when the road collapsed.
After heavy rains on Saturday evening, February 17, a road in Modjadjiskloof partially fell away leaving a drop of approximately 16 to 18 metres.
A Modjadjiskloof resident informed the Herald that the damage to the road was first reported in 2000 after the severe floods but nothing was done for many years.
Finally, on January, 24 2017, a tender was awarded to Casnan Civils for the construction of the gabions (stone packed wire cages) to prevent erosion at the site.
It is reported that midway through last year, it came to light that a site establishment fee had still not yet been issued and without this, work cannot commence.
Residents urged the ward councillor for answers but received nothing.
Read:Â MODJADJISKLOOF: Millions for cars but not for water
Letaba Herald was on the scene on Tuesday, February 19 and spoke with the Site Agent, Jonathan Sehodi, who is currently working with a team from Casnan Civils to fix the issue.
Sehodi told the Herald that he and his team were at the site last week and put out road signs to direct motorists into using one lane only.
Mid-week last week, the road signs were reportedly stolen but the road remained cordoned off with logs and cones being used in place of signs.
Thankfully due to this, no vehicles were using the lane when the road collapsed.
Sehodi reports that they began working at the site on Tuesday last week, before the road actually collapsed, with the intention of strengthening the bank.
The Casnan Civils team aim to build gabions in order to prevent further erosion to the road bank and prevent the same issue from happening again.
Casnan Civils aim to complete the project within two months, “We promise to move on with this, we won’t stop anymore,” Sehodi told the Herald.
This isn’t the first time that Modjadjiskloof residents have had to deal with unsafe road conditions.
Read: ‘Malema’s sinkhole’ in Limpopo
Claims of poor construction work and judgment were made after part of Uitzig Street collapsed on October 1, 2017.
A former ward committee member who also once served on the infrastructure committee in 2011 told Letaba Herald that Uitzig Street was part of a construction tender awarded to SGL engineers in 2011, of which Julius Malema was one of the co-owners.
The tender amounted to several millions.
“Three construction companies were contracted at the time. The tenders followed the correct prescriptions. But the contractor made other decisions,” the committee member told the Herald back in 2017.
He claims he told the contractors from the outset that the compaction of the soil was done incorrectly.
