Poor management of the yellow fleet carries a high cost for the tourism industry in the Hantam and Karoo-Hoogland region.
Countless gravel roads are uneven with deep ditches, peppered with sharp rocks or covered in thick, undriveable loose sand without any warning boards erected to alert road users. This is proving to be a deterrent to tourists wanting to view the Namaqualand flowers or explore the SKA telescope. Farmers and businesses are also taking strain and are tired of regularly dealing with flat tyres and other road-inflicted damages.
The situation is not surprising. Graders break down regularly and on a good day, only two out of eight graders of the Department of Roads and Public works are operational. This is in contrast to the nine operational graders, intended for the region.
There is no road engineer in the area. As a result, there is no quality control in respect of the road conditions. The person in charge of roads, based in Calvinia, doesn’t inspect the roads and doesn’t respond to calls for road repairs in relation to storm damage. The schedule for the blading of roads is extremely scarce and when one is published, it doesn’t materialize.
At times, contractors get appointed to attend to road repairs, at an additional cost to the department, eating into chunks of the budget. This leaves less money for investment in growth-enhancing infrastructure and ultimately the backlog for critical repair works continues to grow.
The poor road quality makes the roads unsafe. Due to poor cellphone signal in the area, an increasing number of road-related incidents leaves people increasingly vulnerable, due to their inability to contact emergency services.
The dire road conditions in the Namaqualand region has decimated the tourism industry and led to job losses at a time when the country’s expanded unemployment rate has risen to 42,4%.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has written to the MEC of Roads and Public Works, Fufe Makatong requesting that urgent attention be given to the yellow fleet and the road conditions. However, after years of the DA calling for reform on the very same issue, we are doubtful that the ANC government will react now.
The only way to rescue the Namaqualand region from growing unemployment is to vote for a new government that will maintain our road infrastructure and the yellow fleet, making it easier for businesses to stay afloat.