The South African government’s perceived inability to maintain and upgrade vital sections of the country’s road network has taken centre stage again after a 35-kilometre stretch of road had to be closed off in the Northern Cape Province earlier this week.
The R31 connecting Daniëlskuil with Koopmansfontein south of Kuruman fell into disrepair following unseasonal rain for what is ordinarily a dry part of the country.
Gaping potholes that are a metre deep in places have made it very difficult for the estimated 2000 trucks using the road on a daily basis.
Mainly serving the local mining industry, heavy-duty drivers are often forced to go off onto the side of the road, now also unusable because of flooding.
The potholes have since been filled with gravel but are apparently still too dangerous for any kind of traffic.
Commenting on Monday’s closure of the road, Northern Cape MEC for Roads and Public Works, Fufe Makatong, has described the road as “life-threatening”.
Also used for transport by the agricultural and tourism sectors, the stretch of road was closed on Monday to allow repair work that could take months to complete.
However, it had since come to light that the R600 million made available through the medium-term budget would not be enough to save the road, Makatong said.
Motorists and transporters have in the meantime been asked to use the N12, N18 and N14 highways.
It has also been advised that more direct point-to-point traffic be diverted onto the R325 and R385 – both being gravel roads.
But certain untarred alternative roads connecting locations such as Koopmansfontein with Kuruman are already in a bad way because they’re carrying traffic for which they’re not designed.
According to Dirk Krapohl of Agri Northern Cape, gravel roads are really there for the farming community and should not have to be used by ore-carrying trucks because the poor state of main roads is life threatening.
Last week it also emerged that the road network in Limpopo was in such a bad state of disrepair it would take 150 years to fix.
According to reports, only 31% of that province’s road network is tarred.
Of that percentage, a large amount is potholed and poorly maintained, making Limpopo one of the country’s worst provinces for proper road usage.
