Rage over state of roads

While Northside ratepayers demand that the quality of their roads improves, the roads depot tasked with the job has other priorities.

Echoing ratepayers’ concerns, Ward 97 councillor Jaco Engelbrecht said more teams are needed on the roads to fix the problems in the region.

He pointed out that the Hamburg roads depot has a total 11 teams that can do work, but only two of these teams currently serve its feeder area.

“The length of the roads that Hamburg has to deal with was doubled which compounds the problem,” Engelbrecht said.

He accused the Johannesburg Roads Agency of sustaining a “seriously flawed policy” with regard to resource allocation by the agency and its political masters.

“The state of roads like Piet Retief Road, Doreen Road, Penchantz, Hole in One and several others, are proof of the reality that the rates and taxes of the people of Ward 97 are not spent on them,” he asserted.

“As much as 70% of the roads in this region have to be repaired urgently, but agency workers have been too busy fixing roads to do Level 1 maintenance, such as removing weeds from pavements or cleaning catchment pits.”

He criticised the level of service delivery offered by Hamburg depot.

“The Hamberg depot is in a perpetual state of crisis management. In comparison, Waterfal depot and Strydom Park depot both work together on Region B which includes Randburg.”

Joburg mayor Mpho Parks Tau said the municipality plans to further improve the surface quality of roads in the city during his state of the city address last month.

“We are also protecting our roads from overloading and vandalism by focusing on freight logistics and infrastructure protection,” Tau said in his address.

In response, roads agency spokesperson Bertha Peters-Scheepers reiterated Tau’s plans to improve and fix roads in the coming financial year.

he said.

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