Staff reporter
Clocolan – The farming community in conjunction with taxi operators in Marquad, Clocolan and surrounding areas have vowed to shut R708 till their complaints are attended.
According to farmers who spoke on condition of anonymity R708 has been neglected for years and a contract abandoned the R248 million project.
R708 is a link between South Africa and Lesotho from N1 be it via Maputswe or Maseru border posts, and apart from farmers and taxi operates, trucks also used it.
WATCH:
This is not the first shut down by farmers and taxi operators over bad roads in the region, on the 17 March 2020, R26 was also shut and it took Sam Mashinini, former MEC for Community Safety, Roads, And Transport to attend to attend the concerns of farmers and taxi operators.
WATCH:
That being said, a list of companies getting contracts from Community Safety, Roads and Transport show more or less same companies getting work over others with at least top 5 companies dominating the list.
Deon Roux, spokesperson and rural safety coordinator for the farmer said about 316 people compromising of farmers and taxi operators from Clocolan, Marquad, Ficksburg and Ladybrand showed up.
“In total we had 316 people, a mixture of farmers and taxi operations from Clocolan, Marquad, Ficksburg and Ladybrand.
We parked our cars, taxis and tractors for a good 1.5 km and only opened one lane for emergency services and cash in transit vans.”
Roux said Jabu Mbalula, MEC for Community Safety, Roads and Transport didn’t attevd to accept their memorandum but rather sent three officials.
“The MEC was not available but he sent three people from his office, they arrived around lunch were hackled by protectors. Even when they responded to questions they were hackled but we did hand over our memorandum.”
Asked what is it they want, Roux said.
“We want weekly meetings with the ontractor and officials from the department.”
In conclusion, Roux said the MEC will come to address them next Friday and thanked SAPS for their corporation.
What triggered the protest today is not only the bad road, it’s the arrogance by Mbalula who didn’t even respond to the letter sent by farmers.
This has been his posture even when he was the spokesperson for the ANC.
The only time Mbalula responded to anything, was in December when a picture of Joyce “Pretenders” Mathae, Free State Premier in hospital bed went viral.
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All we hav to do is to vote out the ANC AND ITS CORRUPT GVT.
Visit it seems you are the one corrupted can you elaborate what is corruption like your like racists who ill treat our people like cattle but they claim to know more.
You guys need to get someone to read your articles before you publish them. I’ve never seen so many errors in a news article before. Grammar, punctuation, spelling…. It makes it look like you aren’t a serious news site
My thoughts exactly Matt
I agree.
The basic editing errors makes this site seem like amateurs
Spellcheck-nyana? Could finish reading this horror of a poorly written article. Makes me even question the validity of its contents🤮
*couldn’t
Can you doubt people’s concern?
No not at all, which is why the topic deserves better quality treatment than this poorly written article
I guess this is not a linguistics class. It is matter of demand and supply. Language specialists can keep their syntax. People need roads
People slso need basic editing on media publications.
It is indeed not a linguistics class but the poor use of linguistics lead to the veracity of the content being in doubt.
This article is horrible, even though the subject matter is important.
It makes this publication look like a primary school class project.
We deserve better and we have the right to demand it
This is a serious concern that the government should consider.
I guess the government doesn’t prioritize it because water from Lesotho doesn’t not use road to rich South Africa.
May be it is a way of reducing the coming of illegal immigrants from Lesotho.
Please, check the grammar and spelling of your article before you publish it.
Cannot understand WHY you Guys are arguing about Editing & Spelling errors ?
Us Public should be United in trying to get this Country working properly, once more.
Unfortunately the Free State has of recent become a cesspit of corruption, murder, mayhem and chaos.
Yes indeed and maak daai fokon pad toe, klaar.