N2 traffic meeting yields no results

THE Springfield Business Forum Action Committee may look for legal advice for the continuous loss of income caused by the construction of the new M19/N2 interchange after what the committee termed another fruitless meeting with SA National Roads Agency Ltd (Sanral) project manager, Edgar Dube, on Tuesday.

Last week, the committee met Dube to raise concerns over the loss of income caused by traffic congestion in the area, they said they were losing over R40 million a month and they asked Sanral to come up with major alternatives to minimise the congestion in the area.

Dube then told businesses he would be meeting the contractor to find alternative ways to speed up the construction and ways on minimising the congestion. He promised businesses he would return with feedback in a week.

But on Tuesday, businesses allege that even though Dube came back to meet them, he did not have any tangible solutions or suggestions their concerns.

Failed

Shaahid Gunnie, manager of the Engen service station in the area, said Dube had failed to come up with any solutions to their grievances.

“Dube has failed to take this matter seriously; it doesn’t look like he had meetings with the site engineer or the contractor as promised last week.

“He was just full of promises and more promises, he even went as far as teaching us about protocols. What protocols? We are losing business, we need action,” said Gunnie.

He (Gunnie) said they would be discussing what steps to take against Sanral over the loss of income they had suffered because of the construction.

Another stakeholder who was not impressed with the outcome of the meeting was Sphume Khuzwayo, who was representing SA Retails.

Even though she said she did not want to comment much about the meeting, she said she was disappointed that it had not yielded any positive results.

However, the DA’s Jayraj Bachu, who was at the meeting, said that as much as he was sympathetic to business’s concerns this was not the right time to throw stones at each other.

“As someone that has been working with the council for some time, I also sympathise with Dube. I know that while it is easy to say that the matter can be addressed within seven days, in reality that is impossible because there is a great amount of bureaucracy that is involved in major projects like this.

“Most of the things that businesses raised cannot be sorted overnight or over seven days, let us give Dube and Sanral a chance. That is a decent thing we can do,” said Bachu.

Dube had not answered questions posed to him via e-mail at the time of publication.

The project linking Umgeni Road with Reservoir Hills and Newlands is aimed at alleviating traffic congestion, but has been plagued by delays.

It was to have been completed by October this year, but Sanral now says it will only be completed by May next year.