The ongoing failure by the Roads and Public Works Department to prioritise farmers’ pleas for improved road conditions in the Hantam and Namaqua district has exposed the critical shortage of functional graders and the lack of trained operators in the Northern Cape.
To the detriment of farmers in the area, there are only three graders allocated to Sutherland, one for Williston, one for Fraserburg and two for Calvinia, with only one broken construction machine availed as needed. Farmers are further frustrated that there are only two graders available to service an entire 4000 kilometer area in the Hantam region.
While it is not the responsibility of farmers to make roads accessible to road users, farmers are constantly forced to risk their lives and farming equipment to rescue other road users from life threatening situations caused by poor road conditions and the lack of equipment to fix the roads.
Farmers have to plan alternative routes, that are taxing on their already limited budgets, to gain access to schools, work and other towns. Due to the added financial burden on farmers of keeping the roads in drivable condition, economic growth in the region is stifled while their livelihoods are also threatened. The state of the roads is a further impediment to the local and international tourism industry, given that the Tankwa Karoo National Park is a high in demand tourist attraction for local and international tourists.
The DA has prepared parliamentary questions for MEC Fufe Makatong, to establish the true state of graders in the province. We want to know how many graders and operators are allocated and appointed in each district, how many are currently out of order and what the department is doing to address the condition of the roads in this area, as a matter of urgency.
A decade of excuses that graders are not operating due to the department waiting for critical parts, or due to a lack of operators for these limited graders, must come to an end.
The DA will continue to put pressure on the department to intervene and hold the department liable for the expenses incurred by farmers in the Tankwa Karoo, as a result of poor road conditions, which are an indictment to the local economy.