After three years of pleading with the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) to repair the badly deteriorated Shaft Street, the Stormill Association took matters into its own hands.

“There are about 3 500 people permanently employed in Stormill Ext 2,” said co-director of the Stormill Association Leon Human.

“Shaft Street is the only access road into the area, and it was deteriorated to the point where businesses were suffering significant losses due to customers being unwilling to risk damage to their vehicles to come here.

“Workers at the various factories also lived in fear of their vehicles being damaged as they traversed Shaft Street to get to work. Some businesses had closed down or moved away. Workers lost their jobs and their livelihoods.”

In response to questions posed by the Roodepoort Record in August, JRA acting head of Regional Operations Mpho Maruping emphasised that an attempt had been made by the entity to intervene.

“A grader was deployed to the area as part of the routine maintenance intervention; however, the grading did not provide a sustainable improvement,” he said.

Maruping added that the road would be prioritised for further technical assessment and inclusion in the entity’s maintenance and resurfacing programmes, subject to the availability of the required budget and resources.

Community steps in to fix road

The Stormill Association, which was originally formed to address infrastructure vandalism that regularly disrupted electricity supply to the area, launched an internal fundraising initiative and approached potential partners to repair Shaft Street.

“After talks with another political party came to nothing, we approached Ward 70 councillor Caleb Finn,” said Human.

“He put in a call to the Democratic Alliance’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, Helen Zille, who came out to see for herself and was shocked at what she found.

“With her help, everything was put in place within just a few days. Between the funds our members had raised and a generous contribution from the DA, we were finally ready.”

Private and political resources pooled

Human said various companies donated funds while others lent manpower, equipment, or machinery to the project.

“Between the DA’s ‘blue bakkie brigade’ consisting of 120 members, about 100 volunteers from the area and a dedicated project management team led by former Ward 84 councillor Gert Niemand, we managed to finally get Shaft Street back to a usable state in just four days,” he said.

According to Finn, the project involved the use of 75 tonnes of hot asphalt, 200 bags of cold asphalt used to fill potholes throughout the area, and 30 litres of paint.

“We also removed 20 skips worth of waste,” Finn said. “The total budget for this project was just shy of R300 000.”

The Record approached JRA spokesperson Bertha Scheepers for comment on the three-year delay in fixing Shaft Street, the legality of actions taken by the association and the DA, and what steps, if any, the entity plans to take in response.

The JRA opted not to comment, saying in a response on September 16 that its mandate is administrative rather than political.

The Roodepoort Record reached out to MMC for Transport Kenny Kunene on September 21, setting a deadline for comment by September 23. His answers will be published in a follow-up article once received.