Pretoria - The City of Tshwane has refurbished its Bon Accord quarry crusher plant in Pretoria North to enhance road maintenance, particularly repairs of potholes.
MMC for Finance Peter Sutton, also acting on behalf of mayor Randall Williams, led the visit to the R46 million plant yesterday.
When fully operational, the City will no longer have to procure road building and maintenance materials from external service providers.
The Bon Accord quarry was established in 1904 to assist the municipality to produce and provide material for building and maintenance of roads.
It experienced constant breakdowns due to ageing infrastructure, and posed health and safety risks due to rusting steel structure, worn-out foundations and footing, and failed to comply with Mine Health and Safety Act regulations.
Sutton said: “It took the intervention of this administration to get the ball rolling and find a sustainable solution by effecting the overdue refurbishments needed to get the plant to function optimally.
“This was driven by the fact that it makes economic sense to have in-house resources as opposed to relying on external parties for services or resources. In-house capacity means we can build knowledge, ensure skills transfer, improve operational efficiency and most importantly, save costs.”
The now upgraded crusher plant will produce 270 tons of crusher sand an hour and many other materials.
“We recognise that to attract investment and confidence, we really need to put our money where our month is; to strive for continuous improvement and demonstrate that we are serious about building a prosperous city by investing where it matters the most.”
Sutton said the City would also derive revenue from materials produced by selling them externally.
Sutton admitted that although the City had an ongoing maintenance programme there was still a lot of catching up of work that needed to be done.
He said the method of reacting to potholes after they were reported was not working because it meant that they would repair some and still leave others on the same road.
He said they must just start repairing all potholes on that entire road to show proactive maintenance that would make significant improvements.
Sutton added that the goal was to actually resurface the roads because patching was no longer working.
He said affected roads needed complete refurbishment to be in good condition that would last for many years to come.
Pretoria News