Transport minister Fikile Mbalula is on a mission to roll out a national project where his department will be working on fixing potholes across the country.
Mbalula said this during his second visit to the North West in Wolmaranstad, where he had set aside R45 million to fix the pothole-riddled N12 road.
Mbalula said that even though significant improvements have been made on the N12, there will be a bigger road maintenance project to redo the road.
“The people of this town, the drivers, I told them that this was not a pothole, it was a dam; I told them that I am going to fix it, not because it’s my name, that is my job,” he said.
Mbalula said the work was not yet complete and that he was still going to come back when the work gets completed.
“I am happy with what I am seeing, and this tells a story of what we want to do; president Ramaphosa has said to me that I must take over the issue of fixing the potholes throughout the country, so by July, I am going to launch a national campaign on the fixing of potholes because people are not fixing potholes, they take the money, and then disappears, and potholes have not been fixed, I am hard at work, I am cooking the final product, I am rolling out a national project, working with municipalities, potholes will be closed,” he said.
He said the major work has started on the N12 and that there will be a new big awarding of a contract for the major redo of this road by Sanral.
This, he said, will happen in the next three to five years.
Sanral project manager Palesa Monamodi said the repairs made were a temporary measure.”
Once the project is done, their routine road maintenance will maintain this road while we are busy registering a project that will take care of the upgrading of this town. What we are doing at the moment is a holding action that will last for three to five years, and after that, we will come and once we have secured a consultant and contractors, then we will do a proper construction of this work depending on what is required in this town, that is the long-term plan of this town,” she said.