Members of the public are questioning the sluggish pace of completion of the Gonubie Main Road reconstruction, which is now 18 months overdue.
This week, two lanes of the four-lane road were still closed during the day for roadworks..
A review of Dispatch reports reveals that it has taken 26 months to build 3.75km of road on a road already cut and previously surfaced. This is roughly five to six metres a day.
The first hint Gonubie would get a four-lane main road came at the end of June 2011 when Buffalo City Metro (BCM) announced a R70-million upgrade to add a fourth lane to the road and build four traffic circles.
Then municipal spokesman Samkelo Ngwenya said the project was in its planning phase and construction was expected to start in the 2012-13 financial year.
By May 2013, planning was completed, and it was announced that the project had grown to R150-million and the tender for the four-lane reinforced concrete road had been awarded to Basil Reed with a scheduled completion date of October 2014.
However, start to the work was delayed by a dispute over payment for the expropriation of land from landowners.
After work had started on preparing the road, the first test of the new concrete lanes was made on a stretch of Ocean Way near Black Rock in Gonubie in March 2014.
In July 2014, it was reported that completion of the road had fallen behind by a month. BCM’s consulting engineer, Ian Swartz of CBM Africa, said the first lane was expected to be completed on August 15, but the last portion of concrete had to cure for 14 days.
Despite weather, geographical ills and technical argument, Swartz said the completion target of December 2014 still stood, “pending review and approval of delay claims”.
In August, it was revealed that cracks in the road needed to be repaired, and Swartz admitted that work was now severely behind schedule and looked likely to be only completed by February 17 2015.
He said Basil Read had issued new completion dates of August 20 for the first lane, October 16 for the second lane, and December 11 for the third.
Although the concrete was designed to crack about every 1.25m, some shrinkage cracks had appeared which were “not allowed”.
In June 2015, it was announced that the road would only be completed in December 2015, a full year after the original completion date, with the delay blamed on a breakdown of the cement-laying paver, land ownership disputes, rain, inaccurate information about existing Telkom and Eskom lines and water mains, new “variation orders” (from the consulting engineer) because of unsuitable ground conditions and ground water, and quality problems with contractor Basil Read’s work.
In December 2015, when all four lanes were scheduled to be opened, it was stated that final work would be completed by February. The work is still in progress.
lAfter three days of trying to get answers, Buffalo City Metro spokesman Thandy Matebese said officials were still not ready to reply.
Andre Swarts, chairman of the Gonubie Ratepayers’ Association, said: “We were told it would be finished by the end of this month. If it is, I will kiss your b***side.” — mikel@dispatch.co.za
No end in sight for Gonubie road
This week, two lanes of the four-lane road were still closed during the day for roadworks..
A review of Dispatch reports reveals that it has taken 26 months to build 3.75km of road on a road already cut and previously surfaced. This is roughly five to six metres a day.
The first hint Gonubie would get a four-lane main road came at the end of June 2011 when Buffalo City Metro (BCM) announced a R70-million upgrade to add a fourth lane to the road and build four traffic circles.
Then municipal spokesman Samkelo Ngwenya said the project was in its planning phase and construction was expected to start in the 2012-13 financial year.
By May 2013, planning was completed, and it was announced that the project had grown to R150-million and the tender for the four-lane reinforced concrete road had been awarded to Basil Reed with a scheduled completion date of October 2014.
However, start to the work was delayed by a dispute over payment for the expropriation of land from landowners.
After work had started on preparing the road, the first test of the new concrete lanes was made on a stretch of Ocean Way near Black Rock in Gonubie in March 2014.
In July 2014, it was reported that completion of the road had fallen behind by a month. BCM’s consulting engineer, Ian Swartz of CBM Africa, said the first lane was expected to be completed on August 15, but the last portion of concrete had to cure for 14 days.
Despite weather, geographical ills and technical argument, Swartz said the completion target of December 2014 still stood, “pending review and approval of delay claims”.
In August, it was revealed that cracks in the road needed to be repaired, and Swartz admitted that work was now severely behind schedule and looked likely to be only completed by February 17 2015.
He said Basil Read had issued new completion dates of August 20 for the first lane, October 16 for the second lane, and December 11 for the third.
Although the concrete was designed to crack about every 1.25m, some shrinkage cracks had appeared which were “not allowed”.
In June 2015, it was announced that the road would only be completed in December 2015, a full year after the original completion date, with the delay blamed on a breakdown of the cement-laying paver, land ownership disputes, rain, inaccurate information about existing Telkom and Eskom lines and water mains, new “variation orders” (from the consulting engineer) because of unsuitable ground conditions and ground water, and quality problems with contractor Basil Read’s work.
In December 2015, when all four lanes were scheduled to be opened, it was stated that final work would be completed by February. The work is still in progress.
lAfter three days of trying to get answers, Buffalo City Metro spokesman Thandy Matebese said officials were still not ready to reply.
Andre Swarts, chairman of the Gonubie Ratepayers’ Association, said: “We were told it would be finished by the end of this month. If it is, I will kiss your b***side.” — mikel@dispatch.co.za
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