17 Oct 2016

Minister of Local Government and Rural Development Mr Slumber Tsogwane said government will install solar streets lights on the Bobonong internal roads with the money that remained from the construction of roads.
Mr Tsogwane said this during a tour of the just completed 20 km Bobonong  internal roads on October 15 which were constructed to the tune of P 254 million.
He advised the council to quickly respond to residents’ complaints about compensation and assist them accordingly.
Chief civil engineer from Central District Council Mr Boitumelo Keikitse said the project consisted of upgrading 20 km of the existing gravel to bitumen standards and construction of 30km of concrete lined offside storm water drainage system.
He said the 20km roads  started on April 2013 and was expected to be complete on April 2016 but the contractor was given an extension up to June at no additional cost.
He said on the breakdown of the cost of roads construction, supervision costed over P13 million, construction over P222 million while land expropriation or compensations will cost P18 million.  He said 17, 43 km of the 19, 96 km of roads has been surfaced and the project is under the defects liability monitoring effective from  June 2 to July 1  next year.
Mr Keikitse said overall expenditure of the road was  P 260 million.
He said there are outstanding issues of assessment of properties affected by the construction activities and correction of drifts on some roads.
Mr Keikitse said the assessment team has been setup made up of the officers from Bobirwa Sub -district and headquarters to facilitate compensation of affected properties.
He said the team will meet on October 17 to 21 to come up with an implementation plan for the exercise. In the project additional work, Mr Keikitse said during the project meetings they realised that there was a need of additional crossover slabs on the storm water drainage.
He said it has been established that in order to facilitate access to properties and alleviate flooding of homesteads there is need to implement additional works which cannot currently be implemented because of lack of funds whereas the contract works are still under the contractor until end of defects liability.
Mr Keikitse said the implementation of the works during the defects liability period would transfer all the risk to the council.
He said the assessment of properties affected by construction activities was done and the consultant has submitted a report of properties that can be affected by construction at a radius of 100 metres from the centre of the road.
Mr Keikitse said the council will make assessment to compensate those affected and the compensation is expected to commence on November this year.
Member of Parliament for Bobonong, who is also a Minister of Justice, Defence and Security Mr Shaw Kgathi thanked Mr  Tsogwane for  the tour and advised him  to officially open the project.
Mr Kgathi praised head of departments in Bobirwa for  working together to deliver positive results in their respective work destinations. ENDS