The South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL) has replaced the culvert that collapsed on the R61 at the Tsomo Junction in the Eastern Cape.
On Monday, Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula, officially opened the road, which was damaged on 28 December 2021 because of inclement weather and incessant rain.
“Emboldened by tangible progress towards repairing and recovering this road, undertaken with a great sense of urgency and an unwavering commitment from our officials and contractors, we made a bold commitment on 4 February 2022 that before the end of this month, we will be back here to re-open this road,” the Minister said.
Earlier this month, the Minister visited Cofimvaba in the Eastern Cape to conduct an oversight visit on work done by SANRAL.
“At that time, we witnessed first-hand, the unbearable inconvenience which commuters travelling from Ngcobo to Cofimvaba had to suffer, as no vehicle could drive past the collapsed culvert at this small bridge,” the Minister said.
The R61 road connects to Mthatha, which is the economic centre of the district, divided by the N2 running southwest to northeast through the town.
“We are also taking three Eastern Cape provincial and regional roads over to SANRAL to start the important work of upgrading and maintaining them,” the Minister said.
SANRAL has been directed to commence with the administrative process of taking four strategic routes guided by the law.
These strategic routes include provincial road R61, also known as District Road DR08004 and DR08005, from Tombo outside Port St Johns to the town of Port St Johns, and to Mzamba at the Umtamvuma River.
The length of this road is 180 kilometres.
SANRAL will also take over provincial Road DR08038 from R61 to Cala (52 kms) and DR08012 from Maluti to Qacha’s Nek (23 kms) DR08031 and DR18031 from Viedgesville to Coffe Bay with a length of 76 kms.
“This means that at the end of the promulgation process, the total road infrastructure network which SANRAL will be taking over in this province is 371.7 kms,” Mbalula said.
The Minister said the road to Coffee Bay from the N2 is also part of the road packages that SANRAL will be taking over.
“We are aware of the growing complaints from the tourism sector, the agricultural sector and communities on the Wild Coast, in relation to the unbearable condition of that road. We have therefore directed SANRAL not only to include that road in their immediate plans, but to also ensure swift finalisation of its designs and costing, so that we can… get it fixed,” he said.
Across the country, government remains seized with the intractable challenge of the road maintenance backlog.
“The total paved and gravelled network at provincial level is 184 816 kms. Forty percent of this network has reached the end of its design life, and approximately 80% of the road network is now older than the 21-year design life.
“The total paved and gravel network at municipal level is 339 849 kms. While there are serious backlogs at this level, we cannot verify the extent of the crisis at municipal level due to a lack of information and decision support systems at this level. This is a matter of great concern that we need to tackle with urgency, as lack of data makes resource allocation difficult,” the Minister said.
Government will address this challenge through the implementation of an integrated national maintenance programme and a rural transport strategy for South Africa. –SAnews.gov.za
