Residents fix road themselves
Emergency services can t use dangerous road
he seemingly neglected residents of Gwatyu farms resorted to R50 contributions from households who can afford it, towards the purchasing of material to refurbish the area s dilapidated
’
R351 access road last month.
For years the situation at Gwatyu farms has been dire, with minimal service delivery reaching the area, where most residents depend on social grants.
The bad state of the Gwatyu access road has been blamed on local government s lack of
’ service delivery.
The residents have previously reported to The Rep that emergency services, including the police and ambulances, would not travel to the area due to the condition of the road, especially after it had
Trained. Last month, Gwatyu residents decided to take it upon themselves to fix the road. Community leader Thembakazi Matsheke said a construction company appointed to do the roadworks, had not carried out its mandate. For many years the
“condition of Gwatyu roads has been so bad that when it rained, the roads became impassable, meaning schools had to be shut. The situation has now
“become worse and the community realised we might find ourselves completely cut off from places we needed to go for our daily needs.
All this while a company
“was contracted to fix the roads some years ago. The residents were not even consulted so we do not know what was expected of the company.
The community had to
“devise its own means to keep the road. The problem of companies being paid to provide a service to the community of Gwatyu and the residents ending up having to provide the service themselves predates the lockdown.
The pandemic has only
“made a bad situation worse.”
Gwatyu said residents had also battled to have water supplied to their homes and were dependent on the Chris Hani District Municipality (CHDM) for rationed water, for which there was no delivery schedule.
We have no running tap
“water and the CHDM does not have a set delivery schedule. Gwatyu s 42 000ha and is
“’ made up of 88 farms.
One would learn a delivery “had been made at a farm on a particular day out of the blue. This is a major concern
“because people are trying to earn a living so the truck would come and some people would miss it.”
Matsheke said this made it difficult for residents to follow the necessary Covid-9 hygiene requirements.
Community members volunteered to help fix the road, filling potholes, leveling and putting gravel on slippery patches and installing culverts left by a construction company that worked there years ago. The R50 we collected from “the households is used to buy diesel for a truck one of the community members lent us. We use gravel from a
“nearby quarry and hope one day government will heed the call and assist us in our problems. We are a forgotten
“community and are doing everything we can to seek help, but nothing has come of it yet.”
Department of transport spokesperson Unathi Bhinqose had not responded by the time of going to print.