It’s been almost four years since the infamous South Road bridge was barricaded with large boulders due to damage caused by a sinkhole.
Over the past few years various obstacles contributed to the delay in completing the bridge and repairing the road. It was said that behind the scenes planning and authorisations were the reasons for the work only starting in June 2019, and motorists were initially promised a fully repaired road within that following year.
Since then, road users have become used to one empty promise after another. This is due to several setbacks being encountered since the road was closed off.
Earlier this year the Johannesburg Road Agency’s (JRA’s) Head of Infrastructure, Siyabonga Genu, said the many issues that have arisen, especially since the beginning of last year, have caused more delays than initially planned for.
Understandably, the national lockdown halted the construction for a short period, but the effects it had on the steel industry also reportedly led to a supply shortage, hampering the progress even more. According to Genu, the issues caused by the pandemic pushed back the completion date by approximately five months.
Genu added that when work on the bridge resumed after hard lockdown, a poor performance issue with the project engineer meant that the position had to be reassigned, adding more time to the proposed completion.
However, the outlook is still not promising as the completion date has already been pushed back twice in this year. According to Ward 71 councillor, René Benjamin, the road was expected to be fully repaired by the end of April, and again by the end of June, and the most recent completion date is said to be the end of July.
The Record contacted the project engineer for comment and will provide more information as soon as it becomes available.
