To heed the call made by MEC for Transport, Community Safety and Liaison Peggy Nkonyeni, for the Department of Transport to use its internal resources, eMpangeni Region has started a massive operation to address issues of service delivery.
Operation Siyazenzela (we do it ourselves) is aimed at retaining the capacity of the government by using their resources without relying on contractors to maintain road infrastructure, especially those that were affected by the floods that hit most parts of the province.
Already, the betterment unit team is on the ground making sure that roads in various communities under Empangeni Region are in better condition.
Hluhluwe Cost Centre Manager, Thola Dingiswayo says that Nkonyeni has asked all cost centres to start implementing Operation Siyazenzela to speed up service delivery, hence they have teamed up with other area offices under the Region.
“We met with the area offices and formed a team called Betterment Team comprising of Eshowe, Ulundi, Vryheid and Jozini Area offices. From each area office we received 10 units that made altogether the amount of 50 workforce and started working in areas like eManyiseni, Ndumo, Mkuze, Ngwavuma, Makhathini, KwaJobe and Bambanana,” says Dingiswayo.
She further said even the communities are so elated to see their roads being targeted and all kinds of machines visible in their respective areas.
The department intends to spend at least two weeks per area as they have enough manpower which is focusing more on re-gravelling, blading, patching of gravel. On tar roads, they do potholes patching and maintaining the road surroundings which include grass cutting along the road.
