12 Jan 2022

 The gravel road from Lepokole to Bobonong will be graded by Department of Roads while awaiting the winning bidder to start work on the road, an official from Department of Roads, Ms Seole Sosome has said.

Ms Sosome who is a chief technical officer said though there were no specific dates, the Lepokole gravel road would be graded when the department of roads grader finished work at a gravel road leading to Lentswelemoriti.

Speaking at a meeting addressed by Bobonong MP Mr Taolo Lucas in Lepokole Tuesday, Ms Sosome said the tender to grade the Lepokole road had been awarded and currently on cooling period.

She said that following debriefing of companies, three of the losing contractors lodged written complaints about awarding of the tender.

When finally settled, the contractor would be awarded two slots per month per year to grade the road from Bobonong to Tshokwe via Lepokole, she said.

“The contractor will grade the road from the tarred road all the way to Tshokwe and allow users to enjoy the road and then grade back to Bobonong after two weeks,” Ms Sosome explained.

While some of the roads in Bobirwa were graded by department’s machinery, Ms Sosome explained that some were done by private companies.

The technical officer revealed that the department had only two graders with the only 1982 machine working whilst the other needed ‘huge sums of money to fix.’

When all graders were functional, the department graded the roads once a quarter, according to Ms Sosome.

She said the problem of graders was exacerbated by having a single mechanic stationed in Palapye, who also  attended to graders in Mahalapye, Bobonong and Serowe.

Again, she said the Bobonong station did not keep grader spares. Such spares, according to Ms Sosome were kept in Francistown station.

However, Ms Sosome revealed that there were not funds for spares. ENDS