The Head of Department for Roads and Public Works, Mr Bongani Gxilishe, will officially hand over the Luzi Portal Culvert in Mt Fletcher at the Makeni and Mbizeni villages on Friday, 14 May 2010
The project was awarded to Urban Africa Services for an amount of R3.621 498.80, began construction in November 2009 for a period of six months and has been completed within the set project time line
The main objective of this project was to uplift the standard of living of the communities of Makeni, Mbizeni and surrounding areas by building road and drainage infrastructure over Luzi River that would make life easy.
Having received complaints and reports from the community, schools kids and teachers who could not cross the wide and high flowing Luzi River from Makeni to Mbizeni, the number of fatal accidents and incidents that had occurred in this river, including various cases of people drowning while en-route to hospital and the deceased in their coffins who at times had fallen into the river while being sent to their final resting place.
The department committed itself to solving the problem and the project was about developing a technical solution for a stream crossing over Luzi River in Makeni and Mbizeni villages in Mt Fletcher along DR 08018. Luzi River separates the villages and the surrounding communities that symbiotically exist. The river is almost 20 metres wide with a water depth of between 500 millimetres and 650 milimetres in a dry season.
Its new features include:
* a set of 2 400 by 3 600 portal culverts, with retaining walls
* wing walls
* approach slabs
* gabion structures
* short entrance and exit road
A total of 102 local people were employed on the project. They were involved in fixing steel, pouring concrete, construction of gabion structures as well as finishes on the bridge. Urban Africa Services also trained the local people and as such one of the members of the community has become permanent staff of the contractor due to skills acquired.
Media contact:
Jason Lloyd
Cell: 082 728 5476
