Almost a year after the South African National Road Agency (SANRAL) announced a major upgrade of the N1 north between Louis Trichardt and Musina, motorists have yet to see any sign of this. The tender for the proposed upgrade of the N1, with an estimated contract value of R1.2-billion, was supposed to be advertised in November of last year.
The upgrade was intended to address the deplorable state of this section of the national highway, especially in terms of potholes. In October of last year, local resident Mr Jaco Lyon of Mopane counted the number of potholes on a 13-kilometre stretch of the N1 between Bokmakierie and the Riverside Nursery. In total, Lyon counted 583 potholes on this section of the road. On 11 September this year, he posted a video and some photos on Facebook bemoaning the current state of the N1. "This is how our N1 toll road looks between the Waterpoort turn-off and Baobab Toll Plaza. The worst part is that we pay tolls for these potholes. I counted about 1,220 potholes in about 30km," Lyon wrote on his Facebook page. He, like many others, wanted to know what had happened to the promised upgrade of the N1.
The project was for the upgrading of the "SANRAL SOC LTD National Road 1 (N1) Section 29, from Masekwaspoort (Km 27.80) to Musina (Km 70), Limpopo Province" as advertised in a notice. The project will entail the general upgrading of the 42.2 km-long road section, including six major intersections, a number of farm accesses, three road bridges, and seven major culverts located along the route. The purpose of the notice was to invite the public to register as interested or affected parties, since the project will include upgrades and associated mining activities, considering that the material for the project will be sourced from seven borrow pits, encompassing an area of up to 125ha located along the road.
Almost six months after the original announcement, the newspaper again approached SANRAL to find out what had happened to the project. In response, Mr Madoda Mthembu (SANRAL northern region's operations and maintenance manager) stated in April this year that the project was still on track, although delayed. "The tender advert has not been published yet, due to delays in finalising the environmental processes and approvals," said Mthembu, adding that the tender document was almost ready.
SANRAL was also asked about the poor state of the N1 in April and if they were experiencing a backlog in maintenance. "The daily Routine Road Maintenance (RRM) will continue to keep the road safe up until the rehabilitation contractor is appointed," said Mthembu.
Now, almost a year after announcing the upgrade, even routine maintenance of the road seems to have stopped. Mthembu was asked once more why the project had not commenced. In response, Mthembu stated last week that the delay was still caused by the environmental processes' not being finalised yet. He said, however, that the construction tender advert was planned to be published on 29 September this year and that the project cost still stood at R1.2-billion.
Asked if SANRAL was experiencing a backlog in road maintenance (especially regarding the number of potholes) on the N1 north, Mthembu denied this. "There is no maintenance backlog. This section of the N1 national road has reached the end of its design life, and the road needs to be rehabilitated as planned," said Mthembu. Whether this means that the potholes will remain unfixed until the tender is advertised and awarded remains unclear. Judging by the slow pace at which the whole process is moving, however, no "quick fix" is in sight for the poor state of the N1 north.
Over the last couple of months, road conditions have become increasingly bad on this section of the road, with numerous fatal and near-fatal accidents being reported. The number of heavy-vehicle accidents on this section of the road is especially concerning. Mthembu stated that the current traffic volume still stands at 4,000 vehicles per day, of which heavy vehicles make up 32%. Many blame the huge number of heavy vehicles using it for the road's deplorable state.