South Africa National Road Agency (Sanral) has set the date for the physical induction meeting of the project liaison committee (PLC) for June 20 at the Greater Giyani Municipality at the council chambers from 10:00 to 23:00. According to the head for local economic development (LED) in Giyani, Clr Cedrick Baloyi, Sanral is currently inviting business forums and individual companies that intend to bid for work on any of the two projects to register for the workshop. The two roads are 29km each.

“They intend to simultaneously train PLC and subcontractors so that, once construction work commences, they will be fully aware of what is expected of them with regards to the tarring of the two roads,” he said. Baloyi said Sanral was currently in the process of applying for work permits for various sites and preparing the logistics necessary to get the project going. The government promised to tar the two roads in 2012 after protests by the community but nothing happened.

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In 2018, the then Deputy President David Mabuza also promised that the roads would be tarred by 2019. The advent of the Covid-19 pandemic delayed the implementation. Due to this delay many committees representing the road have emerged including a committee of traditional leaders who went to Luthuli House in 2020 to demand that the roads be tarred. Other committees that emerged later had a different approach.

Their tactics included protests, barricading roads and banning all political activities in the area until the roads were tarred. However, that ended in May when Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga introduced the contractors for construction of the roads to the communities. She said the projects will be labour intensive and that about R17m has been set aside for labour on the D3810 road alone, and R66m for subcontractors.