Motorists claim the potholes in Piet Retief Street are posing a danger to them and the situation deteriorates by the day.
The potholes opened up after an underground water leak.

The situation is making it difficult for motorists to drive around the circle as traffic is forced to drive in one lane.
One of the motorists, Nthando Masiye, said he reported the matter to the City of Mbombela (CoM) and it promised to fix it, but until today nothing has been done.
“I called the municipality because I was worried about the water that had been wasted due to the leak and the potholes were also damaging our vehicles. It only repaired the water leak. I think the CoM is waiting for something bad to happen before it takes action,” he said.

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Tricia Groenewald agreed that the potholes are dangerous and creating unnecessary traffic build up.
She also claims that she had physically reported the matter to the municipality and it promised her that it would attend to it.
“I was surprised to see the area being ignored after I was promised that the CoM would take care of it in no time, but it kept on getting worse. The potholes are a few metres away from the municipality, so it should have taken it a few days to fix it,” she said.
Ward 15 councillor, Thea Rix, said the matter had been reported on several occasions, but she was told that there was no material to close potholes.

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While the water leak has been repaired, the potholes remain open.
“It’s getting difficult because we have reported the matter to the relevant department to close the potholes, but nothing happened. I will push until something is done because the potholes are situated in a dangerous spot,” she said.

The CoM spokesperson, Joseph Ngala, said the potholes were caused by water leak therefore Silulumanzi is responsible in repairing the road.
The spokesperson for Silulumanzi, Richmond Jele, said they have already appointed a service provider to repair the potholes, however, he is not sure when it is they going to start with the work.