City of Tshwane Mayor Dr Nasiphi Moya launched a pilot plan to fix potholes in the City of Tshwane on Thursday in Mamelodi West.
“We are showcasing an innovative idea in the form of material that will be used to fix potholes in the City of Tshwane,” explained Moya.
“You will know that we do have a challenge as the City of Tshwane regarding our road infrastructure and one always sees potholes after inclement weather conditions that come in the form of heavy rains,” explained Moya.
City of Tshwane Mayor Dr Nasiphi Moya launched a pilot plan to fix potholes in the City of Tshwane on Thursday in Mamelodi West photo by Dimakatso Modipa
She said the innovative material to fix potholes is the brainchild of one of the innovators in Tshwane known as Groovetech.
“All along we have been bemoaning the quality of workmanship put on our roads but at the same time we knew that if the quality of the material used to fix potholes is neither durable nor sustainable then that will have a negative impact on the work done on our roads,” she said.
“Groovetech company was actually incubated by our own City of Tshwane Innovation unit and we regard this as a success as we always look for innovative idea to solve service delivery challenges,” she said.
“This pilot project will run for 12 months during which we will fix a thousand potholes but we are also patching up any cracks on the roads so as to prevent potholes from developing,” said the Mayor.
“We don’t have money to reconstruct the roads that have already been constructed and the best thing to do is to take care of the roads that we already have,” she said.
“Potholes develop almost every week and though I can not say how many potholes are there in Tshwane, I can safely say that every week we have over 2000 potholes in Tshwane,” she said.
“Residents must work hand in hand with the City of Tshwane and stop destroying infrastructure because it is their own money that is going to be used when doing repairs,” said Moya.
“We need to use waste material to our advantage and I am happy that the material being used to fix potholes comes mainly from plastic,” she said.
MMC for Environment, Waste Management and Agriculture Obakeng Ramabodu expressed joy regarding the innovative idea to use plastic waste material to fix potholes.
“We have to move with the times and can’t operate like we are a government of the 1980s and what makes me proud is that this innovative idea comes from black innovators,” he said.
“The idea to use plastic waste material to fix potholes came to my mind at the time when I was still living in Gauteng in 2015 and I could see that plastic waste material was becoming a problem so I started doing research in how we can use plastic waste material to solve the inherent problem of potholes in Tshwane,” said CEO and founder of Groovetech company Linah Maphanga.
” For the next 12 months I will be monitoring the roads on which our material has been used to see how it copes abd we will be going to different areas to do tests and and observations as the material may react differently in different areas,” she said.
Daniel Maloma of Naledi Section in Mamelodi complained about a street behind Agnes Chidi Ordinary School which has never been maintained since the days of apartheid.
He called upon the Mayor to repair the street urgently.
Tshwane Talks readers have been able to read stories in this publication for free for over two years now. We still want our readers to access our stories for free, but we are asking those among our readers who can afford it to contribute at least R30 a month to cover some of the costs of publishing this independent, non-aligned online newspaper which gives a voice to all sectors of society irrespective of race, colour, creed, religion, or political affiliation. You may make your contribution by depositing at least R30 a month into Tshwane Talks' bank account. Details are as follows:
Bank Details
Bank: Standard Bank
Account Number: 10225548834
Account Type: Cheque Account