Gert Sibande District Municipality launched a road re-graveling programme to deal with all the terrible internal gravel roads within the municipality that sometimes make traveling on them an awful experience. The district Executive Mayor together with his entourage descended to Dipaleseng to launch this programme on Tuesday, 08 th August 2017 at Siyathemba Stadium.
The program which is the Premier’s initiative in conjunction with the Department of Public Works was launched a year after the local government elections of the 3 rd August 2016 where commitments were made by the ruling party. “We are here to fulfill some of those commitments, through the maintenance of roads which is also a crucial element of service delivery,” said the Member of Mayoral Committee from the district responsible for Infrastructure Services, Cllr NS Nhlapo. She also observed that they are cognizant of the fact that this kind of a program is not a long-term solution but only offering a short-term remedy while financial resources do not allow for a more permanent solution.
This is in line with the district’s mandate to assist all seven local municipalities within its jurisdiction to effectively render services to its communities. The aim is to rotate the district’s, the Department of Public Works’ as well as the relevant local municipality’s yellow fleet to all the municipality to assist them with the roads not yet paved and/or tarred.
A total of seven graders, two tipper trucks, a TLB and other machinery will be deployed to work in Dipaleseng for the whole month of August covering a total of approximately 51 km² of gravel area to gain maximum impact. A work program has been developed in consultation in Ward Councilors which identifies all the street and roads that require attention.
The Executive Mayor of Dipaleseng Local Municipality, Cllr Mafunda Makhubu was very appreciative of the efforts made by the district in support of the municipality and its service delivery endeavors. He further requested ward councilors to be fully involved with this programme in their respective wards.
“The district is also looking at rolling out pothole patching as well as renovations of community halls in Siyathemba and Grootvlei” said the district Executive Mayor, Cllr Muzi Chirwa. An amount of R 1 million has been set aside for this double-edged pothole patching project targeting poverty alleviation and infrastructure maintenance which aims to touch many people through the utilization of cooperatives in the implementation. The district Executive Mayor went on to echo words of encouragement to the youth and women to establish these cooperatives to allow them to benefit from such programs in the future.
