The Sunday News
Sukulwenkosi Dube Plumtree Correspondent
MANGWE Rural District Council has received $90 000 from Zinara for road maintenance works within the district. The local authority’s chief executive officer, Mr Nketha Mangoye Dlamini, said 237 kilometres of earth road were set to be developed using this fund. He said of the target 86 kilometres was the State road from Plumtree leading to Mangwe District.
He said the local authority had a yearly target to conduct road maintenance on 430 kilometres of road.
“We received $90 325 from Zinara recently for road maintenance works. The work that we will be covering is bush clearing, road formation and reshaping.
“We submitted our proposal to Zinara early this year indicating our targeted roads. Our target for the year is to work on 430 kilometres and we expect to receive $361 280 from the road authority for this purpose. At the moment we have received $90 325,” said Mr Dlamini.
He said this fund from the road authority came at a time when the local authority was struggling to maintain roads by only using funds collected from rate payers.
Mr Dlamini said payments were becoming poorer by the year which was making service delivery a challenge.
He said in addition to funds allocated by Zinara the local authority was also carrying out road maintenance works using levies collected from rate payers.
Mr Dlamini said they had managed to develop about 120 kilometres of council roads since the beginning of the year at a total value of $37 000.
“We decided to put a lot of focus towards developing roads because a number of areas had become inaccessible. This was even making it difficult for service providers to reach certain areas.
“This time around as a local authority we decided to take up the State road which leads into the district from Plumtree. We realised that it was pointless to be focusing on smaller roads while the main road continues to deteriorate,” he said.
Mr Dlamini said the state of the district’s road network was important as it would boost development.
Members of the business community in Mangwe said poor roads were hindering development of business in the area.
“It is necessary for the council to carry out road maintenance works because we were starting to record more losses than profits from our operations. Suppliers were shunning some of the areas within the district which was making it difficult for us to get suppliers,” said Sindisa Business Association chairperson Mr Barnabas Nyathi.
He said as a result shop owners were forced to travel several kilometres to Plumtree Town on damaged roads to get supplies.
Mr Nyathi said some operators eventually recorded losses because of damages to their vehicles.
He said some service providers like ambulances were struggling to access some villages because of poor roads.
