South Africa: Acting Premier of the Free State province, Ketso Makume, welcomed the Minister of Transport, Sindisiwe Chikunga, to Bloemfontein, Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality for the ministerial visit to the province for Vala Zonke and S’Hamba Sonke Consultative projects.
During his opening address, Premier Makume conceded that the state of roads in the province was generally poor and emphasised the importance of speedily fixing them.
Acting Premier Makume said that failure to do so would defeat the government’s aim to bring investments into the province, which will create much-needed jobs. Furthermore, she “It goes without saying that our roads network could do, with improvements and must urgently be stated, be attended too.”
Once our roads have been fixed, we will be able to attract investment to the province which will help us in our aim to provide our people with jobs,” said Acting Premier Makume.
Minister Chikunga said while there have been improvements in South Africa’s 750,000 or so kilometres of road network, much more still needed to be done.
Minister Chikunga was further incensed by contractors’ poor quality of work, despite money being paid out. “We will intensify monitoring of projects and ensure we get value for money. Government has paid massive amounts of money on road projects, but some contractors did shoddy work,” Minister Chikunga said.
She added that the department must retain its skilled workers and allow them to work without interference. MEC for Community Safety, Roads and Transport MaQueen Letshoha – Mathae- was seething in what she described as a collusion between some rogue officials and contractors.
“We know officials who work in cahoots with contractors and do a lousy job. Such people do not have the interest of the people at heart but only theirs. These are greedy individuals, and we are going to take action against them,” MEC Letshoha – Mathae warned.
The department is driving to recruit youth for 650 job opportunities to patch potholes on various roads across the province. The South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) announced that they have taken over control of the N8 road.Municipalities, such as Matjhabeng, announced that they were developing internal capacity to attend to the roads soon.
During the State of the Province Address, Premier Mxolisi Dukwana mentioned several roads that have been earmarked for rehabilitation. These roads are Ladybrand – Bethlehem (R26) and Ficksburg – Rosendal (R70)
The Free State Provincial Government has further indicated that it will approach SANRAL to take over the roads network of R26, R33, R34 and R74. Furthermore, R1.8bn from the Provincial Roads Maintenance Grant (PRMG) will have 75% of it used to ensure the integrity of paved roads, while 25% goes to gravel roads.