Molepolole — Kweneng District Council has commenced grading of internal gravel roads following damage caused by persistent rainfall across the district.
The Chairperson of Kweneng District Council, Mr Ontefetse Rankhibidu said the grading exercise which started in Molepolole recently, would cover internal roads in all 22 villages within the district.
He explained that due to financial constraints, the improvement of the internal road network was being carried out in-house using council machinery. He noted that the council had three graders, although only two were currently functional, expressing hope that they would be sufficient to complete the project.
Mr Rankhibidu added that, funds permitting, the maintenance programme would be extended to internal tarred and paved roads, which had also been affected by the heavy rains.
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He said it was important to regularly maintain roads and that maintenance should go beyond grading to include re-gravelling and paving, adding that ideally roads should be graded whenever the need arose, subject to the availability of funds.
Mr Rankhibidu further highlighted that storm-water drainage tunnels also required urgent attention, as many were almost covered by sand and vegetation. He said the blockage of these tunnels had resulted in flooding, which in turn caused further damage to road surfaces.
Meanwhile, a Molepolole-based taxi operator, Mr Berinyana Batsimako, said navigating the village had become increasingly difficult due to the poor state of internal roads. He explained that taxi operators were expected to drop passengers at their designated destinations, but this was sometimes not possible because of damaged roads.
"Molepolole's internal roads are not in a good state. At times, we fail to drop customers at the exact locations because the roads are damaged by continuously flowing water streams. However, we do our best to get our customers as close as possible to their destinations," he said.
Mr Batsimako added that several gravel roads were riddled with potholes, while some paved roads were submerged by persistent water flows. BOPA
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