MORE than 200 people benefited from the national route N2 from Komgha River to Grahamstown and Keiskamma Pass to Keiskamma River roadworks project.
Training was provided to 136 local labourers, of
which 73 were women.
The R96m project, which lasted for 14 months,
entailed resurfacing the road, construction of culvert
inlet and outlet structures, installation of drains and
replacement of bridge joints. SANRAL also cleared
dense vegetation along fence lines to protect the
fence from fire damage, and repaired the entire
fence line to ensure livestock does not enter the
road reserve.
The resurfacing of 41km of the N2 between Komgha River and Grahamstown, N2 section 14 from Keiskamma Pass to Keiskamma River, was completed in May 2017.
Weliswa Jantjies, of Weli and Cousins General Trading, employed about 20 labourers over a six-month period, building gabions, maintaining culverts and painting rest area tables and benches. The contractor had set aside traffic accommodation, guard rail repairs, bush clearing, fencing and rest area improvement work for target enterprise subcontractors. Four target enterprise subcontractors were engaged on the project with a total expenditure of approximately R11.7m. Of these, three were women-owned companies, accounting for a combined expenditure of approximately R10.2m. In addition to the formal training, there was onthe- job training and mentoring by the contractor’s personnel.
The formal courses included training in traffic accommodation (flagman stop/go/radio), first aid, occupational health and safety, financial life skills and roadside safety for construction workers.
Mbulelo Peterson, SANRAL’s Southern Region Manager, said: “The expected road maintenance lifespan is between eight to 10 years before any major maintenance work will be carried out on the road. Other benefits of the upgrade will result in a smoother riding surface with less wear-and-tear on vehicles.”
MAKING sure routine maintenance takes place
on our roads is critical,” says Roland Thompson,
SANRAL Southern Region Operations Manager.
Thompson further explains that the regular
upkeep of routine road maintenance will assist
in maintaining the condition of the roads if other
planned maintenance actions are delay.
He said that without routine maintenance, a road
with an expected design life of 30 years can easily
deteriorate to an unacceptable level of service in
a shorter period, especially if regular maintenance
actions are delayed. Routine road maintenance is
the first thing SANRAL does after taking over an
existing road.
During the 2016/17 financial year, the Southern
Region managed 18 routine road maintenance
contracts covering 4 963km of road. This included
342km which were added during the financial
period, on request of the premier, including the R75.
This represents 23% of the SANRAL road network
SANRAL Southern Region presently has 18 routine
road maintenance contracts in the Eastern Cape and
there are, on average, nine SMMEs working on each
contract, Thompson said.
During 2016/17 approximately R470m was spent
on routine road maintenance, providing work to 162
SMMEs and 578 people. The total amount earned
by SMMEs was R195m and R290 000 was invested
in training.
In conjunction with the routine road maintenance, SANRAL developed the Road Safety Management System to work towards ensuring that road safety is a central consideration in every decision made about construction, maintenance, operation and the management of its road network. The SMME companies employed under the routine road maintenance contract help to maintain safety on these contracts.
Roberto Kock site manager for Damians
Contractors said the company has been repairing
accident damaged guardrails and erecting fencing
along the R75 between Port Elizabeth, Despatch and
Uitenhage.
“Our role on this project is to keep the standard of
road to specifications. The importance of our work
is to look after the road. As a road ages it must be
maintained,” Kock said.