Today, together with the MMC for Transport, Cllr Nonhlanhla Makhuba, and Acting Managing Director for the Johannesburg Road Agency, Goodwill Mbatha, we launched a newly built asphalt plant in Ophirton, Booysens.
The plant, first built in 1965, for the purpose of supplying asphalt for our internal roads maintenance program, experienced chronic breakdowns which hampered maintenance activities such as pothole repairs and the surfacing of roads within the city.
At one stage, the plant was on the verge of shutting down due to air pollution which affected employees, members of the community and neighbouring businesses.
Anaemic investment in our road infrastructure by past administrations, has meant that a significant number of roads have deteriorated to a level that reconstruction and rehabilitation has become necessary. Indeed, most of the city’s roads have gone past their design lifespan, normally set at about 30 years, with factors such as traffic (loading), drainage system, floods etc., also contributing to the state of our deteriorating road network.
The Johannesburg Roads Agency has been allocated R1.2 billion to the capital budget. Within this budget is an allocation of R250 million for road rehabilitation and reconstruction. In addition to this, the entity has also budgeted R181 million for the rehabilitation of bridges in 2018/19, up from R49 million in 2017/18.
Investment in storm water upgrades also increases to R226 million in the 2018/19 financial year, up from R169 million in 2017/18. To completely eradicate all gravel roads within the City, we would require an investment of R8.1 billion. Over each of the next 3 years, the City will spend R375 million to do away with gravel roads.
More so, the legacy of apartheid spatial planning is still evident across the city in the number of gravel roads found within communities. Coupling this with the plant’s poor performance, efforts made by the JRA to respond to the City’s infrastructure needs have been greatly hampered. As part of our commitment to bringing Diphetogo (Real Change) to communities, I am pleased that the new asphalt plant will make substantial inroads in speeding up the process of converting gravel roads to surfaced roads and all JRA’s programmes using asphalt.
MMC for Transport, Cllr Nonhlanhla Makhuba said: “this investment has not only allowed us to respond to unemployment by increasing the team numbers at the depot but also, with this upgrade, we hope to continue and improve on all our service delivery activities requiring asphalt.”
Acting Managing Director for the JRA, Goodwill Mbatha explained that the new asphalt plant will produce asphalt quicker and in a safer manner. “This will speed up service delivery and most importantly, its use of Nomex filters in the baghouse will rectify and eliminate environmental pollution that was persistent with the old asphalt plant.”
The newly built plant boasts increased capacity, producing a hot mix asphalt from an average 80 tons per hour to 200 tons per hour.
The plant can also produce cold, warm and hot mixes of asphalt; which increases the ability of the JRA maintenance teams to respond quicker to asphalt service defects. It also has a dual burner that can use burner fuel and natural gas, increasing the use of green energy.
Through the construction of this new facility, I have every faith that resident of this City start seeing the change we’ve promised our residents.
Cllr Herman Mashaba
Executive Mayor
City of Johannesburg
Media queries:
Omogolo Taunyane
Office of the Executive Mayor: Media Specialist
Tel: 011 407 7527
Cell: 079 451 5211
Email: omogolot@joburg.org.za
