M4 Tongaat bridge repair delayed yet again!

Repairs to the M4 Tongaat River bridge are not as imminent as the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) implied last month, since a contractor must still be appointed.

Responding to questions on progress to fix the bridge, closed since the April floods, Sanral chief corporate affairs officer Lehlohonolo Memeza said a contract had not been awarded yet since the tender had to be readvertised for a fourth time on February 7.

A possible court interdict is also in the mix.

Just south of the bridge, a portion of the M4 was also damaged during the floods with the embankment opposite the Nguni complex at Westbrook sustaining substantial slippage.

Nguni complex body corporate chairman Gerald Nochumsohn and retired quantity surveyor Ian Simpson said they believed the road posed a serious threat to the safety of the complex and its residents and were concerned it could collapse if traffic pressure increased.

“With this in mind we will obtain an urgent High Court interdict against Sanral if they were to reopen the bridge without seeing to this portion of the road first,” Nochumsohn said.

According to him, the complex suffered near R360 000 worth of damages when a portion of the embankment gave way after last year’s floods, further compromising the road’s structural integrity.

Memeza said Sanral teams assessed various roads after the floods, including this portion of the M4.

“We undertook a geotechnical analysis of the M4 embankment failures, and the report was concluded at the end of July last year,” she said.

A design and supervision consultant was only appointed in December though, and according to Memeza is assessing the embankment before providing the design for its repair.

It was recommended the embankment be strengthened with terramesh for the time being.

“A contractor will be appointed shortly. It is not normal practice to appoint a consultant and a contractor at the same time but because of the urgency to reopen the road, the process was accelerated,” she said.

Temporary measures to arrest further failure of the embankment were carried out in November until such time that a construction tender process could be concluded and a contractor appointed.

Referring to the delays in repairing of the Tongaat River bridge, Memeza said Sanral had “adopted a shortened emergency procurement process” but the first two rounds of tenders yielded no submissions that met the requirements.

The tender was cancelled after a third readvertisement because the only two bids also failed to meet requirements.

The fourth attempt at a tender, readvertised on February 7, will close this Thursday (February 17).

“We were originally optimistic that the award could be allocated as early as January, with a two-month construction duration resulting in the work being completed before mid-March,” Memeza explained.

The latest tender is based on a revised design to jack the existing bridge deck into place, resulting in lower costs compared to the previous option of a temporary steel deck.

The cost of the repair remains unknown, however the scope of work entails bringing the bridge decks back into place and stabilising support conditions at one of the piers.

“This will also entail installing concrete pilings up to bedrock level together with pile caps at the settled pier,” Memeza said.

This could take up to two months to complete.

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