Pretoria - For motorists using the Buitekant Road in Soshanguve, Pretoria, it is a financial risk, due to the amount of potholes and the degradation of the road.
However, for unemployed youth, the road is an opportunity for them to earn money by filling the potholes with soil so that motorists can drive smoothly.
Much like car guards working at parking lots and in the CBD streets, these young men have their own territories where they work every day and collect donations from grateful motorists.
They say they make between R200 and R300 on a good day and the money multiplies on rainy season.
“When it rains, you can’t drive on this road it gets bad; the potholes deepen and it becomes really hard to drive. That’s when we cash in most of the money. We are on the road as early as 6am until 8pm if the weather is bad,” said Sipho Malapane, a resident from Soshanguve.
Mara batho ba Sosha do we still call Buitekant Road M20 a road or its a gravel river? @CityTshwane pic.twitter.com/MJtbLSl3Wt
— TSHWARELO (@tshwarelo_99) December 7, 2021
Buitekant Road connects townships in Soshanguve.
It is commonly used by taxis ferrying passengers who work in Rosslyn which is a big industrial area in Pretoria and buses and ambulances frequenting George Mukhari Hospital and Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University.
Taxi driver Tebogo Matjeke said the municipality didn’t care about infrastructure in the township and they were only concerned about suburbs.
“I’ve been using this road every day since 2015; it’s dangerous especially when it rains heavily. The mud is too much and it covers the road. When we complain, no one listens; these boys are really doing a good job by filling the road with soil,” said Matjeke.
Matjeke said he heard rumours that the road would be closed for repairs but nothing has been done.
MMC for Roads and Transport, Dikeledi Selowa, said the City of Tshwane were aware of the issues in Buitekant Road.
“The road has a high water table, and in reality, patching potholes in that road is not going to fix the issue. What it needs is a whole reconstruction...and it’s something that we are looking into as the City. It’s a critical road and it’s part of our priority list in resolving the issue of roads,” Selowa said.
Selowa added that the City had waged a war on potholes in all its seven regions and it was bringing in technology-led solutions and producing more asphalt to repair potholes.
She said they had involved the Expanded Public Works Programme and teams from other regions, and ensuring that the City's production of asphalt was enough to ensure the safety of every motorist and cyclist on the roads.
She added that the campaign had already started in other wards where they resurfaced portions of the road instead of just filling the potholes.
In February, Selowa said the estimated cost of building, refurbishing and reconstructing 6 500km of the provincial road network in the City of Tshwane was a whopping R10bn.
“The City of Tshwane took over Bronkhorstspruit in Kungwini Local Municipality when it collapsed, meaning the budget that we had was now stretched to much larger parts of the city.
“There is a lot of money that needs to be put in to ensure that we have good roads.”
IOL