Authorities mum over mysteriously halted roads upgrade project

GLEN COWIE – The residents of Glen Cowie are demanding explanations from the authorities about the halted roads project in the area which dates back eleven years ago.

According to the residents, the R24 million roads upgrading project’s budget was approved in the 2008/2009 financial year.

The residents said that the road upgrading project, initially envisaged to be 7.88km in length, was set to be constructed from Glen Cowie at D2219 road to Mphofotse and Ga-Malaka.

The angry residents said their hope of accessing neighbouring villages with ease was fading away as the project had not even started construction after eleven years of promises by authorities.

Those close to the project said trainings were also provided for labour intensive work in preparation for its commencement.

“To date, the upgrading of the road from Glen Cowie has not taken place and there had not been any means visible to initiate the much awaited project, the budget for this project was approved in the financial year 2008/2009,” worried the residents.

The residents are calling on authorities to privilege communities in the district that were to benefit from this project with a detailed report of what transpired to bring the project to a halt when its budget was approved eleven years ago.

Junius Malaka, a community leader, said the road’s upgrading project would have helped communities vastly as the current state of the road was bad.

Malaka said as community members they attempted to get explanations from the current Sekhukhune District Municipality administration but no clear answers were provided.

“We tried engaging the district municipality to get clarity on progress in terms of the upgrading of the road. We were promised that the matter would be looked into but nothing is happening to date. We need someone to tell us what is going and what the way forward is. We also want to know what had happened to the initial budget for the project,” said Malaka.

Attempts to get comment from Roads Agency Limpopo (RAL) were not successful at the time of going to press.