Traffic was disrupted in two Eastern Cape towns on Tuesday morning as communities protested over service delivery failures.
Eastern Cape transport department spokesperson Unathi Binqose confirmed that the R61 in Ngcobo had been closed due to a community protest.
“Our personnel and other law enforcement agencies are on the ground trying to control the situation,” he said.
“It is unfortunate that we now have a man-made road closure after a day of stagnation due to snow-induced closures on Monday.
“We continue to call on communities not to target our roads and inconvenience everyone whenever they have grievances.”
Meanwhile, in Mbhashe Local Municipality, residents of wards 2 and 3 closed the R408 to Willowvale as part of a protest over the municipality’s failure to maintain rural roads.
Mayor Dr Samkelo Janda, who spent the morning negotiating with protesters, said the municipality had been using its in-house road maintenance plant to repair rural roads, but some of the machinery had broken down and needed repairs.
“Those roads, according to the municipal road maintenance plan, are repaired using our in-house plant, but some of the machines have broken down,” Janda said.
“We are in the process of having those machines repaired during the course of the week. The plant was busy repairing a road in Ward 10 when it broke down.
“The roads that are part of the reason for this protest are also on the road maintenance plan. As soon as they are done fixing the roads in Ward 10, they will come straight to Wards 2 and 3 so that the roads residents want maintained can be fixed.”
Janda told protesters that the work was likely to begin by the end of September.
Daily Dispatch