The main street in the rural town of Ngcobo in the Dr AB Xuma Local Municipality, which links to the R61, is set to get a major facelift in a bid to give a modern feel to one of the oldest towns in the Eastern Cape.
This was announced by mayor Siyabulela Zangqa.
The underdeveloped town is the birthplace of premier Oscar Mabuyane, anti-apartheid activist, Rivonia triallist and former ANC deputy president Walter Sisulu, as well as SA’s first black doctor, Dr Albert Bathini Xuma, who served three consecutive terms as president of the ANC.
Zangqa said the municipality, named after Xuma, had held discussions with the SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) about upgrading the main street.
“They told us that around September, they will come back and inform us how much that is going to cost so that we start with the process of engaging with all the stakeholders affected by this project, including business and property owners as well as homeowners and the taxi industry,” he said.
We will make the road bigger, create more parking bays and street lights through the town
“We will make the road bigger, create more parking bays and street lights through the town.
“There will also be robots installed, traffic circles created, and modern stalls created for hawkers. This will make our town beautiful and attractive.”
Earlier in 2025, it was announced that Sanral would carry out a R1.3bn project to upgrade about 18km of the R61 from All Saints to Baziya.
The project is scheduled to take 39 months to complete.
At the time, Zangqa said the project would not only bring economic growth to Ngcobo but also help create employment for the locals and benefit the business community.
He said the town battled congestion in the small main road, a lack of modern features such as traffic lights and enough parking bays.
The municipality had also issued an expression of interest for the construction of a R300m shopping mall.
It had already informed Sanral about the need to create roads that would connect to the mall, which would be built outside the CBD in a bid to ease congestion in town.
“We are also engaging with owners of buildings in the main street to work with us to refurbish their properties and make them aesthetically pleasing to the eye,” Zangqa said.
In 2024, five people were killed and 19 injured when a building, housing several small businesses, collapsed.
Zangqa said they had applied to the courts for a demolition order after the owner failed to renovate it.
He admitted that many buildings in the town including the main street were old and unsafe, hence they had engaged the owners to have them renovated.
But Ngcobo businessman Sikhokhele Mbeshu, a qualified engineer and board member at the All-Saints Hospital, said he was not holding his breath as many promised big projects meant to change the face of Ngcobo either remained incomplete or never even got off the ground.
“I will only believe it [main street upgrade] when I see it with my own eyes.
“So many times you hear of a project and then the contractor has disappeared, or the budget has been depleted before its completed,” he said.
Instead, the town needed to be redesigned and replanned as there was “too much congestion of people” in it.
He said the fact that the main street did not have street lights left many businesspeople worried about the safety of the businesses.
Eastern Cape Chamber of Business president Vuyisile Ntlabati, however, gave the plan a thumbs up.
He said a shopping mall would not only help the people of Ngcobo save on transport costs to travel to other towns, it would also help create a huge number of job opportunities.
“Retail is the biggest employer in our province especially in these smaller towns.”
Ntlabati said the fact that towns like Ngcobo, which is more than 100 years old, were still underdeveloped, was a huge indictment on the government for failing to invest in growing small rural towns.
Daily Dispatch
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