Sanral undertakes construction on R36 and R37

The South African National Roads Agency SOC (Sanral) visited Mpumalanga on several occasions in 2021 and made the budget for the completion of these projects known.

Over R3bn has been set aside for conventional road construction and nearly R350m for operations and maintenance in the province. The deputy minister of transport, Sindisiwe Chikunga, said at the Mashishing Community Hall in October that Sanral is committed to making the R36 and R37 safe.

“The work needed for the initiative includes general road maintenance such as potholes and road surface repairs along with the affected network of the road, grass cutting, stormwater drainage, fencing, and road signs. The project is estimated to take 36 months,” said Chikunga. The expected construction duration will be 15 months. It started in June/July 2021.

Readers commented the following after reading the article online about the accident on Sunday January 16:

• “It must be the potholes, the road is now worst than ever.” – Karen van der Meule
• “This is a very bad road.” – Jeremia LaMmatau Letswalo

Typical work to be done will include concrete pavement repair, pre-treatment of the existing road, traffic accommodation as well as drainage and structure improvements. Both the R36 and R37 are notorious for serious vehicle accidents.

Bradley Garcia (21) had retrograde amnesia after an accident on the R36 in September. On Sunday January 16, two men suffered serious injuries when their vehicles collided on the R36 close to the Pilgrim’s Rest turn-off.

Steelburger/Lydenburg News reached out to Sanral and asked if more temporary measures would be put in place while the whole project was being finished. No feedback had been received by the time going to press.

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Info block:

DA calls on MEC to assess the state of roads

Poor road conditions between Dullstroom and Lydenburg (Mashishing) continue to wreak havoc. “A good provincial road network is pivotal in Mpumalanga where tourism plays a big part. Good roads are needed for economic recovery. It is from this perspective that the DA finds it unacceptable that for the 2020/21 financial year, the department failed to meet the target of the road surface that needed to be resealed by 17 664 square metres,” said Trudie Grové-Morgan, DA spokesperson for public works, roads and transport.

Grové-Morgan said the former finance minister, Tito Mboweni, had spoken about his disappointment with the potholes between Dullstroom and Lydenburg. She also referred to the untimely death of Linah Malatjie, executive mayor of eMalahleni Local Municipality. The cause of her accident was said to be potholes on the R544 between Gemsbokspruit and Verena. The DA said that many municipalities were ravaged by heavy rain during the last couple of months, and this has led to the increase of potholes.

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“We call on MEC Latchminarain to assess the state of the roads in the following municipalities: the City of Mbombela, Thaba Chweu, eMalahleni, Steve Tshwete, Thembisile Hani, Lekwa, Govan Mbeki, Nkomazi and Emakhazeni,” said Grové-Morgan. The DA said the Department of Public Works, Roads and Transport is also in a position to create much-needed employment for thousands of residents. According to it, 46.4% of the province is currently unemployed.

“The DA is against the department decreasing the number of work opportunities created by the transport sector from 37 285 in 2018/19 to only 6 238 in 2020/21. Given the above, the DA calls on Latchminarain to ensure that targets set are met and that we focus on the condition of our roads and job creation in the coming year,” said Grové-Morgan.

Sanral was asked for comment but had not responded by the time of going to press.