After more than a month of waiting for a private contractor to finish a new project, several complaints arose from residents and road users about the state the road was left in after construction started. Nearing the turnoff towards Jackaroo Park – the earth had been dug out next to the Old Middelburg road leaving a long ‘trench-like’ gap.
Motorists complained having to take care not to drive too close to the side of the road for fear of falling off the side. “Bigger and broader vehicles have to drive in two lanes so they don’t fall off! This really causes some trouble, especially when a truck starts moving into your lane suddenly because of the narrow road,” a road user previously stated. The turnoff into Jackaroo also confused drivers as there is now only a single tarred lane and a bad stretch of gravel road.
After several calls from members of the public, DA councillors; Cronjé, Moosa Bhamjee and Johan Taljaard, came together during last week to discuss these problems. “We needed to find out who was responsible for the damage and repairing of this road,” Cronjé had said. As the councillors explained the road was split between provincial and the eMalahleni Local Municipality. “Because this road is used as an alternative route for heavy vehicles it makes sense that it would fall under provincial responsibility,” Taljaard said.
Searching for the answers about why the road had not yet been repaired and left in this state without, seemingly, any progression on the construction site, Cronjé contacted the South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL). “I received an email saying that the private developer had gone bankrupt,” Cronjé explained.
Mr Nuno Gomes, operations and maintenance manager/ project engineer at SANRAL, confirmed this; saying that the previous contractor had left and they are currently awaiting a new contractor that would start soon.
“When advertising for a contractor it takes about three months for results, but we’ve been working on this for some time.”
