LIMPOPO – Residents of Section-D2 in Giyani are expressing growing frustration with the local municipality over poor street maintenance following repair work.

According to community members, whenever municipal workers come to carry out repairs, especially those involving digging up the streets, they do not properly restore the streets to how they found them afterwards. This issue has been a recurring problem that has left residents feeling neglected and inconvenienced.

The latest incident occurred after the municipality was called in to fix a burst water pipeline in Section-D2.

While the repair work was completed, workers left behind a large pile of soil by the side of the road, creating not only an eyesore but also a potential hazard for motorists and pedestrians.

Residents say this uncollected soil has been sitting there for several days, disrupting daily life and raising concerns about the municipality’s commitment to properly maintaining infrastructure in their area.

Community members are now demanding that the municipality take responsibility for cleaning up the mess and ensure that future repairs include thorough street restoration to prevent such problems from recurring.

“It looks like it has become a common practice that whenever the municipality comes to fix anything in our area, they leave everything scattered behind.  They don’t mind leaving our streets dirty, expecting us residents to clean up after them,” said Section D2 resident Dion Bvuma.

When asked why municipal workers had left heaps of soil on the site after completing repairs, municipal spokesperson Steve Mavunda disputed claims that the site was abandoned.

Instead, he stated that the municipality was awaiting required work by Eskom before returning to fully restore the area.

“After completing repairs, our employees decided against levelling the site because Eskom needed to access the same location to repair an electrical cable leading to a household.
Further excavation was required for that work,” explained Mavunda.

“Our employees had an agreement with the affected household that once Eskom had repaired their electrical cable, the family would notify the municipality to return and restore the site.
However, now that there’s a complaint about the matter, we will repair the site immediately, regardless of whether Eskom has completed its work,” he added.

Although the municipality did return to remove the heap of soil it had left behind, the site remains incomplete due to substandard repair work.

Gravel was left scattered on the tar road by municipal workers. “The site hasn’t been cleaned at all,” said another resident.