Home | News | ROAD STILL GRAVEL, E28M SPENT

ROAD STILL GRAVEL, E28M SPENT

Font size: Decrease font Enlarge font

PIGG’S PEAK – At face value, there is nothing that has been done to upgrade the Pigg’s Peak-Bulembu-Magoga road, but E28 million has already been spent on this project.

Regardless of the fact that the road is still gravel that has dangerous curves and potholes that damage tyres, the Ministry of Public Works and Transport reportedly works on the project behind the scene. To illustrate how committed the ministry is to the deferred project, they had anticipated to spend E60 million by March 31, 2020. The sum of E28 million is actual expenditure as at March 31, 2019.

Construction

It must be said that the E60 million was an estimated cost. Due to government’s financial constraints, the project was deferred. The construction of the Pigg’s Peak-Bulembu-Magoga road had been estimated at E947 985 000 by the time the project was deferred. The Bulembu-Pigg’s Peak Road is an 18km dirt one, which connects the country with Barberton.
Asked where they used the E28 million because the road is still in a bad condition and there are pegs indicating designated alignments, Vincent Buhle Dlamini, Chief Roads Engineer, said they spent the money on payment of consultancies. He said it was also spent on road designs, reviews of road designs and compensations of people and companies to be affected by the construction of the road. Dlamini said people should not think that they had done absolutely nothing as the project has three tendering stages –
   Road design, reviews;
   Resettlements;
   Compensation;

He said seeing families unmoved from their homes should not make people assume that they would finally not give way to the construction of the project, after all, they had been compensated satisfactorily. Dlamini did not have the list of the compensated families at the time this newspaper interviewed him. He disclosed though that a substantial amount of money was spent on people and companies who owned trees. He said the road would pass through some trees, which people used as a source of income. The chief’s road engineer mentioned that the Pigg’s Peak-Bulembu road covers 20 kilometres. Dlamini pointed out that the project was in two phases – putting asphalt or tar on the Pigg’s Peak-Bulembu road and Bulembu-Bulandzeni (Magoga) where there are also trees and homes that would be affected by the road project.

Comments (0 posted):

Post your comment comment

Please enter the code you see in the image: