7 April 2022
The road between Ga-Rankuwa and Kgabalatsane is eroded and potholed. Photo: Chris Gilili
The busy gravel road between Ga-Rankuwa View near Pretoria and Kgabalatsane in the North West Province has been left to go to pot.
Residents, business owners, school learners, shoppers, commuters, truck drivers and taxi operators in Kgabalatsane (which had a population of 9,000 in the 2011 census) are fed up that their main access road to Ga-Rankuwa is muddy, potholed and eroding away at the sides.
Citiwe Mashiqa, who has spent her life in Kgabalatsane, says the road was once satisfactory, years ago, but has steadily declined.
“When it rains, it becomes very messy. It is unbearable,” she says. “Just last month, I took my car for repairs twice.”
Frederick Kgasi, a delivery driver, said, “It is a dangerous road. We have been having issues for over five years. This is our main road for drivers delivering hardware and other goods.”
Madibeng Ward 10 Councillor Fenky Phaloane (ANC) said the City of Tshwane and the Madibeng Local Municipality in North West are still busy settling who is responsible for the road.
Phaloane said the asset registry has the road belonging to the City of Tshwane because it was created for the City to get building sand from Kgabalatsane for the construction of RDP houses in Ga-Rankuwa. But Tshwane is refusing to maintain the road now that the City no longer uses it, said Phaloane.
Meanwhile the municipality won’t maintain a road that doesn’t belong to it, says Phaloane, even though most of the four kilometre road is within its borders. “Our position is that the road must be moved to the Madibeng Municipality asset registry, and then we can fix and maintain that road.”
In his view the road needs to be rebuilt from scratch.
Phaloane said Madibeng Municipality still had to install water services and electricity for RDP houses in Kagisanong and there might be more heavy vehicle traffic along the road.
Madibeng Municipality had not responded at the time of publication.
City of Tshwane spokesperson Selby Bokaba did not respond to questions sent last week.