The R573 Moloto road in Kwamahlanga, Mpumalanga – dubbed the ‘road of death’ – will take five to 10 years to complete, according to the Minister of Transport, Dipuo Peters.
She was speaking at the sod-turning ceremony held earlier this week to mark the start of the R3.7-billion upgrade project. “Work on the 139-kilometre stretch of road will be completed in stages with the most critical 25-kilometre section receiving priority attention.”
Peters said government had made road safety a national priority. “We have put policies in place, made changes to legislation and regulations, empowered our traffic law enforcement officials and allocated more resources to government agencies such as the South African National Roads agency Limited (Sanral) to introduce engineering solutions that will lead to safer road environments,” she said.
According to Peters, these collective efforts are starting to bear fruit, pointing to the drop in road accidents over the Easter period. “We are not claiming easy victories. There is still much to do and our efforts to improve this situation will not flag. But at least we are seeing the trends moving in a positive direction,” she said, adding that this was why the Moloto road upgrade was so crucial.
“If we can bring down the rate of accidents on this stretch of the R573 we will demonstrate that we are indeed making progress in our broader efforts to improve road safety. Instead of the ‘road of death’ this will become the ‘road of hope’.”
She said Sanral had also already started with a wide range of interventions in terms of road maintenance that included the repair of potholes, the cleaning of drains, the trimming of foliage on the side of the roads and the introduction of new road signs and line markings.
