EXECUTIVE Mayor Clr Herman Mashaba, MMC for Transport Clr Nonhlanhla Makhuba, and acting managing director for the Johannesburg Road Agency (JRA) Goodwill Mbatha launched a newly built asphalt plant in Ophirton, Booysens on August 8.
The plant, first built in 1965 for the purpose of supplying asphalt for the internal roads maintenance programme, experienced chronic breakdowns which hampered maintenance activities such as pothole repairs and the surfacing of roads within the city.
At one stage, the plant was on the verge of shutting down due to air pollution which affected employees, members of the community and neighbouring businesses.
Anaemic investment in the road infrastructure by past administrations has meant that a significant number of roads have deteriorated to a level that reconstruction and rehabilitation have become necessary. Indeed, most of the city’s roads have gone past their design lifespan, normally set at about 30 years, with factors such as traffic (loading), drainage system, floods, etc also contributing to the state of our deteriorating road network.
The JRA has been allocated R1.2-billion to the capital budget. Within this budget is an allocation of R250-m for road rehabilitation and reconstruction. In addition to this, the entity has also budgeted R181-m for the rehabilitation of bridges in 2018/19, up from R49-m in 2017/18.
Investment in stormstormwater upgrades also increases to R226-m in the 2018/19 financial year, up from R169-m in 2017/18. To completely eradicate all gravel roads within the city, the city would require an investment of R8.1-b. Over each of the next three years, the city will spend R375-m to do away with gravel roads.
More so, the legacy of apartheid spatial planning is still evident across the city in the number of gravel roads found within communities.
Coupling this with the plant’s poor performance, efforts made by the JRA to respond to the city’s infrastructure needs have been greatly hampered.
Mashaba said as part of their commitment to bringing diphetogo (real change) to communities, he is pleased that the new asphalt plant will make substantial inroads in speeding up the process of converting gravel roads to surfaced roads and all JRA’s programmes using asphalt.
Makhuba said, “This investment has not only allowed us to respond to unemployment by increasing the team numbers at the depot but also, with this upgrade, we hope to continue and improve on all our service delivery activities requiring asphalt.”
Mbatha explained that the new asphalt plant will produce asphalt quicker and in a safer manner.
“This will speed up service delivery and most importantly, its use of Nomex filters in the baghouse will rectify and eliminate environmental pollution that was persistent with the old asphalt plant,” he said.
The newly built plant boasts increased capacity, producing hot mix asphalt from an average 80 tons per hour to 200 tons per hour.
The plant can also produce cold, warm and hot mixes of asphalt; which increases the ability of the JRA maintenance teams to respond quicker to asphalt service defects. It also has a dual burner that can use burner fuel and natural gas, increasing the use of green energy.
Through the construction of this new facility, Mashaba said he has faith that residents of the city will start seeing the change they have promised them.
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