MyPE

Community Business Directory, Event Listings, News and Views from Gqeberha, Nelson Mandela Bay

More must be done to safeguard our road users this festive season

By

Dear Editor

More must be done to safeguard Eastern Cape road users this festive season. The provincial roads are in a terrible state. They are pothole-ridden and crumbling, road markings are unpainted, and signage is either severely faded or simply missing!

No wonder our roads account for so many fatal road accidents.

The province relies heavily on these roads for economic activity, especially during this period, when there is an influx of tourists, both international and from other provinces. However, the state of our roads is so bad that our tourists risk their lives by just traveling to their destination.

The Eastern Cape has the reputation of having the most deadly roads in the country.

In a recent IQP response, Roads and Trasport MEC, Xolile Nqatha, admitted that the damage to our provincial road network stems from inadequate maintenance over the years, mainly due to underfunding.

He stated that R800 million was allocated to road maintenance this financial year, but we need closer to R3.8 billion annually.

That is a shortfall of R3 billion!

The Eastern Cape Department of Roads and Transport is robbing the people of this province of their livelihoods by not fulfilling its core function of maintaining our road infrastructure, and MEC Nqatha knows this!

In fact, the MEC confirmed that most of the province’s surfaced roads are so bad that repairing the potholes on those roads is no longer an option.

Inadequate maintenance will always result in deterioration. The worse our roads get, the more dangerous they become, increasing the risk of accidents and fatalities. As the festive season brings a surge of travellers, the impact of the maintenance backlog on road safety is further exacerbated.

More needs to be done, and while we cannot fix the roads overnight, we can take steps to curb the lawlessness on our roads that has claimed so many lives. We can stop motorists from taking chances by driving unroadworthy vehicles, overloading, speeding and drunk driving.

This can be achieved through visible policing on our roads and by effective traffic law enforcement.

MEC Nqatha needs to keep the promise of former Transport MEC, Weziwe Tikana-Gothiwe, made in 2018, and implement 24-hour traffic law enforcement seven days a week.

The DA has a plan to rescue the Eastern Cape and is fighting for the people of this province to have access to road infrastructure that is safe and well-maintained and, in so doing, will open economic opportunities that will bring jobs to this province.

Regards

Marshall von Buchenroder MPL
DA Shadow MEC for Roads and Transport

The following two tabs change content below.

Port Elizabethan

This author is a 'catch-all' for occasional articles and letters written to MyPE. The Author of each article can be found in the signature at the bottom of each individual article.