Yards in a section of Kokosi Ext4 are still turned into dams every time it rains due to a botched street improvement project by the municipality.
“We need help and will knock on every door to find it,” says Kabelo Klaas Masebeni of house no. 4016.
Masebeni complained in January that a municipal contractor dumped the extra gravel they removed while building a new paved street near Imfundo Secondary School on the sidewalks next to some houses. Instead of removing it after residents complained, the contractor spread this gravel onto the sidewalks instead of removing it.
This added gravel made the sidewalks, and the paved road built afterwards, higher than the residents’ yards.
“This means that every time it rains, the rain dams up in our yards and floods our houses,” complains Masebeni.
The sidewalks are in places so high that some people also cannot drive into their yards. The project was completed in December, but despite the residents’ complaints about various structures, nothing has been done about it yet.
Masebeni has even supplied a solution for the problem, which is to build V-shaped drains on the sidewalks to let out the water, and to also remove some ground and change the tiling on sidewalks where people cannot get into their yards.
Although he proposed this to the contractor, they refused to help, saying that they cannot do this work without instructions from an engineer.
Meanwhile, residents continue to suffer.
Although the Herald took the issue to the Merafong City Local Municipality’s marketing and communications manager, Temba Fezani, no feedback was received.