Matatiele Municipality defends R3.7m bridge

The Matatiele Local Municipality (MLM) has been at the receiving end of insults from taxpayers who accused it of wasting money after sharing pictures of the Nomgavu bridge that was opened and handed over to the community near Myemaneni village in the Eastern Cape on Friday.

The bridge, which connects communities from Myemaneni and Nomgavu villages, was constructed through the Municipal Infrastructure Grant and cost R3.76 million.

Eighteen people were apparently also employed for the construction of the bridge.

But taxpayers have called on the municipality to explain how it cost more than R3 million to construct such a bridge.

Facebook users Mk Khohliso commented: “This looks very incomplete, even if it was for R150,000. I would still complain for the quality of that bridge. Can we maybe see the initial plan that was proposed for that bridge,” while Tee Jay said: “This seems like one big joke. Nearly R4 million spent and this is what is presented for that. It’s good that communities finally have a bridge of some sort. But these officials are not serious people, their standards of success are shockingly low. I give up! What kind of leadership would make a big deal over what we are seeing on the picture? Not unless there is another part of the bridge we are not seeing on the picture or it is still work in progress.”

Responding to the backlash, the municipality said it appointed an engineer to prepare a cost estimate and construction designs which were presented to the department of corporative governance and traditional affairs (CoGTA) for funding.

Upon approval, the municipality put out an open tender for bidding. The lowest bidder was awarded the tender.

“The scope of the bridge is as follows: Size is 24.3m concrete – 6.1m width and 4m height, including 5m length approach slab on both sides; concrete is 147 cubic meters; 13.1 tons of Y25 diameter high yield steel. The cost also involves the preparation of earthworks for concrete columns before the actual construction. It must also be noted that this is structural concrete bridge, not a box culvert.”

The municipality has invited the Thomases of South Africa to go see the bridge, meet the infrastructure team, and get the cost breakdown of the bridge.

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