Potholed town remains a patchy issue
Several residents said they have been complaining about the state of the roads in the town for years, with some community members compiling their own reports to present to council; photographs and statements on the many potholes dating back to 2018.
With potholes on almost every road in town, residents have complained that bags of wasted tar lay unused in other areas of the Emakhazeni Local Municipality, instead of being used to repair these potholes.
“Every now and then the municipality will come and fill up a few of the potholes, but it is temporary,” said a resident who asked not to be named for fear of victimisation.
“Within a week or two, the pothole reopens and is then just left to further deteriorate.
“We have pictures of bags of tar just sitting in the Belfast area, and bags of tar wasting away in Machadodorp. Why can we not have these bags of tar for our roads? We are just ignored,” he said.
Emakhazeni Local Municipality spokesperson, KT Nkosi, said that a “pothole patching programme is being implemented at Belfast and will commence at Waterval Boven from next week Monday”.
Queries regarding the wasted tar in Machadodorp, why potholes took so long to fix and what challenges faced the municipality when it came to fixing roads, went unanswered at the time of going to press yesterday.
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