All the main roads in the city, Mandela -, OR Tambo – and Walter Sisulu Road are riddled with potholes making it impossible to drive without damaging tyres and cars.
Swerving out is not an option, as oncoming traffic is also swerving out for potholes on their side of the road.
The bad news is that there is no money to fix the roads.
There are no funds for rebuilding roads on the current municipal budget, and in respect of securing government grant funding, no funds for rehabilitation are available.
“The municipality simply has to strengthen its financial position, to ensure it can leverage capital lending for this purpose, and in my estimation any large capital amounts for roads contraction will only be available in two to three years,” Mr Theo van Vuuren, the administrator explained.
Van Vuuren said the municipality started the financial year with R5 million available to do patching, which on an emergency basis, has been on going. This was supplemented by the Provincial Government who appointed contractors to attend to the five main roads in the city.
“They came and went, and some improvements could be seen. However, since November a drastic change took place and due to the heavy rains and increasing number of pipe bursts, water damage to roads increased and we are by far worse off now than a year ago,” Van Vuuren acknowledged the deteriorating state of the municipal roads.
Patching alone is no longer efficient on many roads and these roads needs to be rebuilt
“At more than R1 million rand per kilometre, we are faced with a situation where this is not an option. We should never have been in this situation, but we are and the peculiar state of our water and sanitation network will continue to cause water damage to roads.”
He said the municipality is dependant on their directorate for infrastructure and basic services to expand the current road maintenance. The directorate’s main problems are insufficient materials, vehicles as well as insufficient budget. Where they initially called for tenders for a pothole repair program (which closed in November), the advice received was that a pothole patching program without resealing of the surfaces to prevent further water penetration, which will lead to the forming of new potholes, will again be short lived relieve.
A strategy on how to address the pothole crisis in Emalahleni receives priority attention.
To assist the municipality in the execution of an acceleration strategy the following has been put in place: The patching and grading programs will be published in the WITBANK NEWS to inform the community of planned activity and to allow for inputs and participation. Securing filling materials from donations and also securing more vehicles by means of donations.
Purchasing sealant instead of awarding contracts for patching and using own labour instead of contractors to get more done with the above resources. As part of the city clean up program to empower and equip volunteers in wards to repair potholes and storm water issues, with supplied materials and supervision.
This approach has already been used with great results in two wards in Hlalanikahle. For the main routes to appoint an emergency contractor to ensure these roads are properly patched and sealed.
In the meantime motorists are urged to drive with care and caution.
