Legal challenges delay repairs to crumbling N17 bridge
This prompted Sanral to withdraw its controversial tender policy, a move that required the agency to start the tender process afresh, causing significant delays to the bridge repairs.
Affected residents have already hit out at the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral)’s failure to fulfil its promise to repair the crumbling N17 bridge in Van Dyk Park.
The road agency has acknowledged the delay and cited its controversial preferential procurement policy (PPP) as the reason for the delay in fulfilling its constitutional and statutory mandate.
According to Madoda Mthembu, operations and maintenance manager at Sanral Northern Region, the agency was interdicted against the use of the current PPP at the time it was making arrangements to get a contractor to fix the bridge.
Mthembu explained that following the legal challenges to the policy, which were launched in various courts by construction companies, a decision to withdraw the PPP was taken. This then led to the instruction to stop procurement of some or all services where the tenders were based on the PPP – of which the van Dyk Bridge was a part.
Sanral pointed out that it intends to start the long-awaited repair works on May 6.
“We are in the process of finalising tender documentation to issue to suitable contractors for a request for quote. This is scheduled to be concluded by March 29.”
The damaged section on the bridge’s north side was reported to Sanral in April 2022.
This damage reportedly occurred when a vehicle crashed into one of the concrete beams, damaging the supporting column and the deck point, which was left lopsided. This left pedestrians with no safe alternative way to cross the freeway.
Background
The roads agency initially told the Boksburg Advertiser in June 2022 that it was aware of the situation’s urgency and promised the repairs would start at least within six to eight weeks after the remedial design was complete and a specialist concrete sub-contractor was appointed.
However, eight months after that promise, the broken section of the bridge, only supported by some timber poles, remained untouched.
On February 23 last year, the Advertiser again contacted Sanral for an update on the situation.
The agency said a tender document calling for invited bids from suitably experienced contractors would be issued within two weeks.
They then anticipated that a tender would be awarded and the repair work would be able to commence within two months.
It was projected that the repairs would take about three months to complete.
When the Advertiser revisited the area recently, despite the undertaking given by Sanral, the bridge was still not fixed.
Also Read: Despite promises crumbling N17 bridge still not repaired
