DURBAN - Fix our roads … this was the message that residents of rural Harry Gwala District Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal were hoping would reach President Cyril Ramaphosa before the State of the Nation Address tonight.
The IFP in the municipality was hoping Ramaphosa would address how he would fix the roads in rural areas.
Regional leader of the IFP Mlindeli Ngcamo said rural areas still had gravel roads which were dangerous and not drivable on rainy days.
He said his party had been speaking to the provincial government to take action for more than a decade but nothing had been done.
Ngcamo said locals were finding it difficult to access health and other services.
“Ramaphosa must tell us what plans he has for infrastructure development in our areas. This is affecting schooling because teachers cannot access schools,” said Ngcamo.
A local resident who asked not to be named said if it rained they would have to wait for the situation to improve before travelling to the CBD, adding that it was worse when there were emergency situations where families were forced to carry sick people on mattresses because ambulances cannot access their areas.
Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma Municipality mayor Sindisiwe Msomi said the roads people complained about were provincial roads which were maintained by the provincial transport department.
She said they were responsible for access roads which they were attending to.
Provincial transport spokesperson Thuba Vilane said the department would have to first find which roads these were before commenting on what was being done or would be done about their state.
He said it was not only rural roads in the province which were dilapidated but also roads in eThekwini. Last week the city’s roads department apparently sent a memo to 25 depots informing them that there was a budget shortfall to maintain the roads. Sources in the depots said they were told there was no money to order asphalt for road maintenance but this was denied by the city’s head of communications Lindiwe Khuzwayo who dismissed that the municipality had a budget shortfall.
“This is not true. We have no budget shortfall. The work is continuing in different depots as normal and there is no maintenance of roads backlog in the city. The maintenance work is done through depot teams as well as augmented contract service by external service providers.”
Khuzwayo said the city had a staff complement of approximately 1 300 with 25 depots. A source said workers at the depots have had little or nothing to do. The source said the depots were allegedly at a standstill with no material.
Daily News