Concerns flare-up on poor state of roads in Moutse

Moutse

The Bolsheviks Party of South Africa (BPSA) says they are concerned about the deteriorating state of roads in Moutse, despite billions of rands allocated to other areas in the province to fix roads infrastructure.

Moutse has some of the worst roads in the country with both the provincial and local roads in extreme poor state without being maintained for many years.

BPSA Leader, Seun Mogotji, said they are concerned that Moutse area is neglected in service delivery mainly roads upgrade while other areas in the province are prioritized.

Mogotji has accused government for hijacking resources towards the construction of billion rands project in Modimolle-Mookgopong, saying the project is meant to indirectly campaign for the upcoming national government election.

“In a province where most of the roads require fixing, SANRAL has now decided to fix roads in the Modimolle-Mookgophong area. What about other roads such as the R25 Road in Dennilton, the Stoffberg Road and others that have been without maintenance for years. Yet authorities are quiet about these roads,” he said.

Mogotji alleges that nothing much was done to improve the standard of roads in Modimolle-Mookgophong during the tenure of the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the area, however, billions of rands have miraculously been allocated for road infrastructure just after the African National Congress (ANC) mayor took the helm.

“This is questionable, especially since this is one of the municipality where voters rejected the ANC and suddenly after the ruling party take over billions are allocated for roads,” said Mogotji.

SANRAL was not available for a comment at the time of going to print.

Previously, numerous complaints were raised by Moutse residents to relevant authorities about poor state of their roads including the busiest R25 that links the area with Groblersdal Town and Mpumalanga Province.

The road is full of potholes with many accidents reported recently. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in Sekhukhune said for the past ten years, they have been complaining to Roads Agency Limpopo (RAL) and the Office of the MEC for Public Works, Roads and Infrastructure without the ugly sights of the road being resolved.

EFF Chairperson in Sekhukhune District Municipality, Ali Maloba, said they are worried that the road has already claimed many lives.

“A number of letters were sent to RAL and Public Works Department where we urgently requested their intervention in order to save lives. Unfortunately the authorities seem to be not interested in our pleas,” he said.

Maloba said it is disappointing that the road has been expanded and upgraded into a two-way lane in each opposite direction in Mpumalanga and Gauteng, however, the upgrading and development had never taken place in the Limpopo site.

“Only the Limpopo part was left narrowed, in bad condition and totally neglected. This is a clear indication that Limpopo Government does not care about the safety of road users,” he said.

Maloba indicated that on several occasions, traffic authorities from Limpopo Provincial Government and RAL have collected data and conducted researches on the road, promising an upgrade which was never materialized.

RAL Spokesperson, Luyanda Sithole, has since responded to the publication that the agency will be gathering all relevant information regarding the state of the road and will comment then after.