Roads riddled with potholes
The R102 in Umtentweni is also riddled with potholes and three accidents happened in the past week alone.
Selvan Chetty, senior leader of the Ray Nkonyeni Municipality and chief whip of one of the best run municipalities, has publicly raised his concerns about the manner in which the Department of Transport (DOT) Southern KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) is managing the issue of roads.
“We have alerted the department on numerous occasions to various roads that are posing life-threatening hazards. We have to plead for help from a department whose sole responsibility is to ensure that our roads are safe to use,” he said.
Mr Chetty said the R102 in Sunwich Port is so bad that several accidents have happened. “It is only a few days now that they have placed barriers. That too after exposing our people to danger for many days.”
The R102 in Umtentweni is also riddled with potholes and three accidents happened in the past week alone. One under the pedestrian bridge, two at the traffic lights, corner of R102 and Abingdon Road, then on the way to Port Shepstone there are several large potholes.
Mr Chetty said the team effecting temporary repairs are doing such a bad job that people are questioning the competence of the company.
“They are ill-equipped and certainly appeared unable to manage three small repairs in quick time given that it’s a busy main road to town. The road in Ramsgate is also dotted with potholes. I am appealing for intervention before we lose lives,” he said.
“In addition, it appears to me that members of the DOT are deliberately sabotaging the service delivery programme of the government by their inaction.”
As a leader of the ruling party in the region, Mr Chetty said he was compelled to raise these issues with those managing the department locally to account for the poor service.
He said that many are asking for heads to roll and drastic action against DOT as it’s frustrating residents.
In response to Mr Chetty’s call for action, Peggy Nkonyeni, KZN MEC for Transport, Community Safety and Liaison visited the South Coast last Friday and met with the DOT managers on site.
During her travels around the coast, she noticed big potholes along the R102, especially the ‘crater’ by Umzumbe bridge.
She also added, that she was not happy with the work being done by contractors on the R102 near Umtentweni, and said she would not tolerate shoddy workmanship.
She stressed that consultants must monitor performance by the contractors, or the department would be forced to terminate their contracts.
MEC Nkonyeni told the Herald she is dealing with the various structure and system issues within the department.
On a positive note, a new Facebook page – KZN South Coast Tidy Towns – is certainly the talk of the town, in all the right ways.
The page is headed-up by Vicky Wentzel of Southern Explorer who says the December 2021 South Coast occupancy levels are looking brilliant and they are expecting a bumper season!
However, the roads, especially R610 are full of potholes and the strictly private group for only locals encourages use of this platform to post a photograph and report it. Top on the agenda is for potholes to be fixed, followed by verges, paving, litter and signage.
“We want to work together with the municipalities to fix the problems and turn this page into a positive community concept to keep our towns tidy. We have sold this destination as ‘paradise’ which it is…however with crumbling infrastructure, we need to address these matters as private sector and lead the way!”
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