While other residents have to make their way over potholes and gravel roads, residents and contractors are quarreling at a project to tar several streets in Khutsong South.

According to one of the residents, Nkosana Mabaso, the project to tar Phokoume Street, Tswanelo Street, and Moleleki Street in Khutsong South started last year. Since this time, residents have had to deal with a lot of dust, while the uneven surfaces left on the sidewalks by the contractors are also posing a safety risk.

“An old lady already got injured because of the uneven surface,” Mabaso complains.

Mabaso says that, due to the height of the soil on the sidewalk compared to that of the road, residents have not been able to pull their cars into their yards since the project started. Because of this, he had to build a ramp himself so that he could get his car into his yard.

He also complained that the community liaison officer (CLO) at the site is not communicating with the public. When the Herald visited the site on February 16, the CLO, Obakeng Galesitwe, and a subcontractor, Mojalefa Bambisa, also discussed some concerns. “We started working here in November and are well on schedule to finish the project before the end of the municipal financial year,” Galesitwe says.

According to Galesitwe, they tried to accommodate residents who cannot get their vehicles into their yards by making the guarded yard at their site office available for them to park their cars. Galesitwe and Bambisa acknowledged, though, that this only helps residents who stay close to this site.

On Monday morning, they were, however, trying to accommodate residents by scraping paths into their yards. The CLO and contractor complained that although they had asked residents to keep their children away from the active construction sites, most people did not listen.

“Especially the small children are a challenge. You talk to the parents, but they just say ‘kids are kids,’ and that they cannot always keep an eye on them, but if something happens to them, everyone will blame us,” lamented Bambisa. He and Galesitwe also complained that the residents regularly stole their barricades at night and then use it for gardening and other purposes.

“We brought 20 50m rolls of barricading last year, but we only have two to three rolls left. When you confront the residents about it when you see it in their yards, they always deny that it came from our site,” complains Galesitwe.

The Herald also took the issue to Temba Fezani, the marketing and communications manager of the Merafong City Local Municipality, which is responsible for the project. He said they are aware of the problems and that the contractor is sorting them out.