20 cars per day on R5.5m road

2010-01-27 18:04

Pietermaritzburg - A tar road past the country residence of Transport Minister Sbu Ndebele was used by about 20 vehicles a day, a man who lives close to the road told the KwaZulu-Natal High Court on Wednesday.

Themba Sibiya, 45, a tractor driver, who said he had lived close to the road all his life, was testifying in a case in which Hluphile Zuma, a former chef, lost a hand and part of her forearm in a taxi accident in December 2004.

The minibus overturned, apparently when it hit a pothole on the busy road between Tugela Ferry and Keate's Drift.

She is suing the KwaZulu-Natal roads department and government for an amount still to be fixed.

The department is opposing the claim, arguing that a lack of money precluded more road maintenance and repair.

R500 to fix pothole

The five kilometres of tar road past Ndebele's property cost about R5.536m to lay in the 2004/5 budget, according to government documents.

Zuma's lawyers contend that if the province spent that amount on tarring a lightly used road past Ndebele's property, it should have been used to maintaining the Tugela Ferry-Keate's Drift road.

Earlier evidence given indicated the pothole could have been fixed for R500 when it was still small.

Sibiya said road signs presumably brought for the tar road construction were still in their plastic wraps at the scene of the construction.

Pietermaritzburg's Natal Witness in August 2005 reported that local residents questioned why the road past Ndebele's home was tarred before a much busier road close by, which was badly in need of repair.

Farmers vainly tried for nine years to persuade the roads department to tar the busier road on which many accidents occurred.

At the time a local resident said a substantial part of the lightly used road was tarred within a year after the then premier's wife Zama Ndebele had an accident on the road.
 

- SAPA