R30m more for road repairs – MEC
Residents in the Sinthumule and Kutama areas are complaining about the shoddy construction work and lack of progress made on the rehabilitation of the D959 Road from Louis Trichardt to the Makhado Air Force Base.
LIMPOPO – The six-month project was started in February and has been abandoned less than three months into construction.
Residents are now pointing fingers at the MEC for Public Works, Dickson Masemola, accusing him of being “nothing but a charmer who just wanted to capture the confidence of the people”.
Masemola set aside R11,5 million for repairs to the D959 and D3715 roads.
The work has not been completed and locals now ask who is to blame for the “poor condition of the newly ‘upgraded’ road”.
The rehabilitation project on the D3715 Road from Madabani to Tshikhodo has also been dormant for more than three months.
After representatives from a local community structure went to see the MEC at his office to lay an official complaint about the shoddy rehabilitation done on the D959 and the lack of any work being done on the D3715, Masemola visited the area on October 14.
He met with residents, local structures, including traditional leaders, taxi associations and business forums at the Muduluni Community Hall.
Masemola confirmed that the budget to complete the work was set at R30 million and would be done in two phases.
He said that planning would begin in order to have the patching up and rehabilitation work done within the current financial year, and that the rehabilitation process would start as soon as last week.
He said that the communities must work hand in hand with the contractor.
Masemola said he noticed that no community structure had been involved in the rehabilitation of the D959 and that he would meet with the engineer working on the project for a progress report to be made available.
The MEC during the visit warned contractors in Limpopo in this regard saying Provincial Government is working on a system to blacklist contractors who deliver shoddy work and claim for incomplete projects.
Masemola said that they were going to use 5% of the project’s budget to hire local contractors to work on the road.
The chairperson of the Zoutpansberg Community Development Forum (ZCDF), Patrick Sikhutshi and the secretary of the Sinthumule/Kutama Concerned Group (SKCG), formerly known as the Sinthumule/Kutama Crisis Committee, Elijah Liremi, was satisfied with the visit by the MEC.
