Court gives council 3 days to fix potholes

A Delmas businessman has triumphed in court by forcing the Victor Khanye municipality to fill the gaping potholes on the R555 in Mpumalanga within 72 hours.

After two years of writing letters of complaint about the poor state of its roads, businessman Abu Bakr Omar finally had enough, and approached the Johannesburg High Court.

Yesterday, Judge Naren Pandya ordered the Victor Khanye local municipality to "effect temporary repairs to the potholes on the R555 (the back road between Argent and Delmas) as well as the road gaining entry into Argent off the R555 from the N12 freeway".

Pandya added that "such repairs are to be completed within three days".

The Society for the Protection of our Constitution took up Omar's case, taking the government, the Minister of Public Works Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde, the municipality and the Mpumalanga MEC for public works and roads to court.

In a founding affidavit, Omar said he was "pursuing this matter in the interest of the public who have an interest in the providing of safe roads to travel on".

On April 20, Omar photographed two trucks that had collided on the narrow road after trying to avoid the potholes.

"When I got to the accident, I was told someone had died," he said.

"The least the municipality needs to do is maintain the road," said Omar.

There has been an increase in traffic on the roads as mining in the area expanded.

Court papers explained how one truck, owned by Parsons Transport, was travelling in the lane of oncoming traffic and collided into another truck.

"It is evident that the driver of the Parsons truck was trying to avoid driving on to the potholes on the road."

Johan van der Walt, a mechanic who fixes trucks for Parsons Transport, said: "We replace the tyres every three to four months.

"It's bad, [the municipality] must fix it but they take their time."

Omar said previous efforts to fix the road cut corners. A contractor who "poured tar on to the road" had tried superficially to "create the perception that the roads had been repaired" but court papers said that, after recent rains, "these superficial repairs quickly washed away".

"The respondents have failed in their duties towards the people of Delmas ... It is apparent that there is a need for the urgent and immediate intervention ... to prevent loss of further life," the court papers said.