As the festive season approaches, the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality is hard at work to improve roads across all townships, focusing more on stormwater drainage and sinkholes.
These are the words of the metro’s MMC for infrastructure and engineering, Kabelo Mogatosi, during a recent site visit to road infrastructure projects in New Brighton.
“For us to be competitive with other major tourist attraction cities, we need to invest in our road network. Both our residents and visitors must have a safe driving experience. We have made an intentional move to improve these roads, focusing on stormwater drainage.
“We have old streets here in New Brighton, such as Msimka Street and others that are not accessible to either residents or emergency services during heavy rains due to flooding.
“I’m happy that work on this street is progressing well,” Mogatosi said.
Msimka Street is one of the major streets that will be redone with a new stormwater drainage system at a cost of more than R10 million.
In Jawa Street, the tarring of the gravel road and construction of cul-de-sacs and sidewalks will be done at a cost of more than R8 million.
Mogatosi added that work was also in full swing to push back the 20 000 pothole backlog.
“We are at 80% now when it comes to the fixing of potholes. Our teams are pushing to make sure we fix as many as possible before the December construction shutdown.
“We expect traffic flow to increase in our townships as many, both from out of town and locally, will be taking their December holidays.
“Making sure that potholes and sinkholes are fixed is our contribution towards a safe festive season,” he said.
He mentioned that for the next two weeks his office would be doing an oversight at all road infrastructure projects across the metro to ensure that the little time left for this year is used optimally.
“During the shutdown period the municipality’s internal teams will be on standby to respond to any urgent road construction problems,” Mogatosi said.
