Update: Wyebank woes continue
Terence Pillay revisits the issues surrounding the seemingly endless Wyebank Road construction in Durban and asks if anything has changed since the last expose.
Six months ago, I brought you the story of the chaos and danger that the Western Aqueduct construction project was causing in the Wyebank area, near Kloof. Residents were fed up with the seemingly endless construction that began some three years ago.
The roads were dug up, deep excavation made and pipes laid into the trenches. And that’s where the work began and ended. To date, Wyebank residents say they are riding the gauntlet every day on the main road, which looks like the scene of a bomb explosion in a war-torn country.
The complaints are:
1. The work which began more than three years ago has ground to a halt
2. The road poses a danger to both pedestrians and motorists who use the road on a daily basis
3. A single lane for traffic has been created in parts of the road but it’s meant to serve as a dual carriageway.
4. There is no stop and go system on the road
5. There is no provision for pedestrians, the majority of whom are school children from the Wyebank Secondary School
6. Huge trenches (deep excavation) have been dug to accommodate the pipes, but these remain gaping and a danger to both pedestrians and motorists who could fall in.
7. Cars are being damaged by the condition of the road – there have been complaints that the paintwork is being compromised as well as tyres, suspension and alignment. The long-term effect of this could render the vehicle un-roadworthy. And the residents are now considering a class action legal route.
I contacted the construction company responsible for this project, Esor Limited and got the following written statement:
“Esor is committed to sound health and safety processes and procedures which are in force at all projects across the group. As stated previously Esor is contractually unable to discuss the processes and procedures in place at the Wybank site. Please contact Martin Bright at eThekwini for details on this project.”
They then sent a follow-up email, which said:
“Please note we have been advised that the correct person to speak to at eThekwini in this regard is Ednick Msweli.”
I then contacted the eThekwini Municipality and chatted to Tozi Mthetwa from their communications department. She admitted that she was aware that the construction had experienced some delays but couldn’t tell me what those delays were. She said that she would put together a team to go and visit the area and take the necessary action. Mthetwa also apologised for the inconvenience to the residents and asked them to bear with the municipality.
The fact of the matter is that no one is taking responsibility for the colossal mess this construction project has become.
I looked in detail into the Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993, which the
Municipality and the construction company should be adhering to and Section Six of this Act, which deals with the duties of designer explicitly states:
The designer of a structure must –
· Ensure that the applicable safety standards incorporated into these Regulations under section 44 of the Act are complied with in the design;
· Take into consideration the health and safety specification submitted by the client;
· Take into account the hazards relating to any subsequent maintenance of the relevant structure and must make provision in the design for that work to be performed to minimize the risk
And that’s the law. If you look at the pictures and video below of the area, there doesn’t seem to be any compliance to this part of the Act.
So what needs to happen now is:
(1) A full health and safety audit needs to be done by the municipality and if there is no compliance by the construction company then appropriate action needs to be taken
(2) My investigation has yielded that the construction company is certified with the South African Bureau of Standards (SAB) ISO 9001 Certification, but I would like to know what the standing of this certification is at present.
(3) The residents would also like to know if the terms of the tender have been met.
I may have been just one person jumping up and down trying to get to the bottom of the issues here and that may have seemed like a tantrum. But now a whole community is outraged and when many people jump up and down, that becomes a movement. At the end of the day, all the residents of this area want is for the job which someone is being paid to do, to actually be done.
The roads were dug up, deep excavation made and pipes laid into the trenches. And that’s where the work began and ended. To date, Wyebank residents say they are riding the gauntlet every day on the main road, which looks like the scene of a bomb explosion in a war-torn country.
The complaints are:
1. The work which began more than three years ago has ground to a halt
2. The road poses a danger to both pedestrians and motorists who use the road on a daily basis
3. A single lane for traffic has been created in parts of the road but it’s meant to serve as a dual carriageway.
4. There is no stop and go system on the road
5. There is no provision for pedestrians, the majority of whom are school children from the Wyebank Secondary School
6. Huge trenches (deep excavation) have been dug to accommodate the pipes, but these remain gaping and a danger to both pedestrians and motorists who could fall in.
7. Cars are being damaged by the condition of the road – there have been complaints that the paintwork is being compromised as well as tyres, suspension and alignment. The long-term effect of this could render the vehicle un-roadworthy. And the residents are now considering a class action legal route.
I contacted the construction company responsible for this project, Esor Limited and got the following written statement:
“Esor is committed to sound health and safety processes and procedures which are in force at all projects across the group. As stated previously Esor is contractually unable to discuss the processes and procedures in place at the Wybank site. Please contact Martin Bright at eThekwini for details on this project.”
They then sent a follow-up email, which said:
“Please note we have been advised that the correct person to speak to at eThekwini in this regard is Ednick Msweli.”
I then contacted the eThekwini Municipality and chatted to Tozi Mthetwa from their communications department. She admitted that she was aware that the construction had experienced some delays but couldn’t tell me what those delays were. She said that she would put together a team to go and visit the area and take the necessary action. Mthetwa also apologised for the inconvenience to the residents and asked them to bear with the municipality.
The fact of the matter is that no one is taking responsibility for the colossal mess this construction project has become.
I looked in detail into the Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993, which the
Municipality and the construction company should be adhering to and Section Six of this Act, which deals with the duties of designer explicitly states:
The designer of a structure must –
· Ensure that the applicable safety standards incorporated into these Regulations under section 44 of the Act are complied with in the design;
· Take into consideration the health and safety specification submitted by the client;
· Take into account the hazards relating to any subsequent maintenance of the relevant structure and must make provision in the design for that work to be performed to minimize the risk
And that’s the law. If you look at the pictures and video below of the area, there doesn’t seem to be any compliance to this part of the Act.
So what needs to happen now is:
(1) A full health and safety audit needs to be done by the municipality and if there is no compliance by the construction company then appropriate action needs to be taken
(2) My investigation has yielded that the construction company is certified with the South African Bureau of Standards (SAB) ISO 9001 Certification, but I would like to know what the standing of this certification is at present.
(3) The residents would also like to know if the terms of the tender have been met.
I may have been just one person jumping up and down trying to get to the bottom of the issues here and that may have seemed like a tantrum. But now a whole community is outraged and when many people jump up and down, that becomes a movement. At the end of the day, all the residents of this area want is for the job which someone is being paid to do, to actually be done.
You can email Terence Pillay at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter: @terencepillay1 and tweet him your thoughts.