In line with the Council’s mission of adding capacity to ensure the Municipality delivers on its mandate of providing quality basic services, Enoch Mgijima welcomed two new Tractor Loader Backhoes (TLBs). The two TLBs, delivered today were welcomed by the Executive Mayor, Cllr Thembeka Bunu and her Mayoral Committee. The Executive Mayor said “As the Council we have chosen the trajectory of focusing on basic service delivery. We are building from scratch since our yellow fleet has become absolete and some confiscated in 2018. These will be used to maintain roads in all 34 wards.
The Municipality has been struggling to maintain roads in rural areas and townships”. Portfolio Head for Technical Services, Cllr Mhlangabezi Mangcotywa said ‘the Municipality has been longing to have this machinery for some time. This will predominantly be used for road maintenance, stormwater and electricity maintenance since most of our cables are underground. We have been ably assisted by local businesses who have provided their machinery without expecting any form or reimbursement. We are grateful to have such businesspeople in our Municipality’.
The TLBs will be registered this week and deployed to sites thereafter. The two units were acquired at a retail price of R1.9 million, sourced from the Provincial Department of Transport. The Municipality will continue to add more machinery and ultimately be able to construct and maintain roads without any external assistance. Security systems are in place to ensure safety of this and other machinery. Qualified Municipaly operators have been oriented on using the new units to ensure quality upkeep. The Municipality is still continuing with its efforts of adding more construction units and a fully fledged road maintenance unit will be in place.
