For the next two months contractors will be hard at work fixing gaping potholes in prioritised areas.
Teams from the municipal departmental roads programme have been active in the municipality but due to insufficient equipment their progress was slow to date.
“In the past two weeks we managed to increase the equipment available to them and they are dedicated over the next seven weeks to emergency repairs as well as the five main roads, O R Tambo Road, Walter Sisulo Street, Voortrekker Street, Mandela Road, and Watermeyer Street,” the city’s administrator Mr Theo van Vuuren shared excitedly.
The next time you travel on one of these five main roads remember that it cost a whopping R5 million to fix.
The district municipality also came onboard and they will be focusing on parts of the Old Middelburg Road. These repairs has a hefty price tag of R7 million. But there is a bit of a damper on the Old Middelburg Road programme because the district municipality still needs to confirm the starting date of this project.
Van Vuuren said Acto Phambili Roads was contracted by the municipality to tackle the potholes in Thubelihle in Ga-Nala. They started resealing and patching all roads in this area at a cost of R2.5 million.
Then another R5 million was secured to fix potholes in the Western and Eastern suburbs.
Van Vuuren said a Velocity contract team will soon be rolling out a special Jetmaster system to repair potholes at a rate of 600sq meters per day.
“These repairs will take place in the Emalahleni Western and Eastern suburbs at 300sq meters a day; each for a total of 8 000sq meters in each area. The streets targeted are main access roads, taxi routes, areas around hospitals, clinics and schools. If there are funding remaining after attending to the above more streets will be covered,” Van Vuuren said.
The streets targeted are Matthew Phosa Street, Shadrack Maelane Street, K. D Ndlovu Street, Chief Masango Street, Machibini Drive, P. N Ngobe Street, Moses Kotane Street, Willie Ackerman Drive, Botha Street, Johnson Drive, Luthuli Street, Seeke Street, Mlambo Street, Colins Street, Heynes Street, Thys Jonker Street and the Hlalani excess road. These roads are in the Western suburbs.
In the Eastern suburbs Gordon Road, Wattle Street, Heide Street, Mona Street, Bethal Street, Chistiaan de Wet Street, Rosse Inns Street, Soar Street, Clarendown Street, Jellicoe Street, Colliery Street, Allenby Street, Coert Steynberg Street, Birkholtz Street, Beatty Street, Steve Bantu Biko Street, Merriedale Street, Kiepersol Street, Springbok Street, Dixon Street, Gazel Street, Universe Street, Paul Sauer Street, Betsi Street, Nita Street, Angela Street, Jan Lion Cachet Street and Arnoldus Pannevis Street will be given attention .
Next in line will be Ogies and Phola where 2 000sq meters needs to be done once the above are completed, as the machines will then move from eMalahleni to there. The priorities of roads will be finalized with the unit manager and councilors in that area over the next week.
From there the focus will be on Ga-Nala and Rietspruit 2 000sq meters to be done once the above are completed. Here the unit manager and councilors will highlight the priority areas.
Unfortunately the road turning into Jackaroo Park is not a municipal construction and therefore it will not fall under the pothole project.
Van Vuuren said he does not have an update now on when the impasse with SANRAL will be resolved.
”Some of the access roads to the city are provincial roads and outside the municipal scope,” he said.
”There is no way that we with our available resources can complete all areas in town. It’s our estimation that we will do between a third and 50% of the problem areas at the most with this programme. We however hope to cover 80% of the traffic,” he said.
The municipality’s new financial year starts on July 1 and then further programmes will be embarked on to attend to all the other potholes.
Van Vuuren thanked all the role players who rolled up their sleeves and fixed potholes close to their residences and businesses.
“These private sector initiatives by WITBANK NEWS, Huizemark and different communities where ward councillors and community volunteers were involved, needs to be applauded,” the man at the helm of the municipality said.
Mr Anthony McIntosh, operations manager from Velocity said they are excited about the project and within the next seven weeks residents will see an improvement in the roads structure.
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