Most roads in and around towns, suburbs and townships are in a bad condition with potholes causing frustration for motorists. 

Addressing this issue at the Mayoral Imbizo on Wednesday 8 March 2023, mayor James Tsolela said the municipality was busy patching and fixing most of the roads in the aforementioned areas across the city. Pictures and videos taken by OFM News around the area show how some of the roads have either collapsed or are not in a good condition.

These routes include many in Orkney, Kanana, Jouberton, Alabama, and Klerksdorp among others. However, despite the picture on the ground, Tsolela said the city is currently busy with the filling and patching on these routes.

Tsolela said in his first two months in office he took on the project as a mayoral project, to fix the roads.

"The delay we had was the depletion of the budget but fortunately we now have adjusted the budget and the process will continue to deal with the potholes in the City of Matlosana. We have covered a number of strategic roads and we're also going to continue dealing with a number of strategic roads. You would recall that in our budget for this financial year, we have new taxi routes that we will be building to assist in terms of improving infrastructure in all of our townships so that at least we'll be able to travel on those roads without any risk as a result of potholes and other things" he added.

OFM News previously reported that the municipality is one of the heavily indebted municipalities in the province, with some of its debt running into billions of rands.

The municipality, which was a massive financial contributor in the province with its gold and platinum mines around areas such as Orkney near Kanana and Stilfontein near Khuma, is struggling to keep up with arranged payments with its service providers.

Tsolela told OFM News that the municipality owes a combined R2.6 billion to at least two service providers and they are still failing to keep up with the monthly instalments. Tsolela said the municipality owes Eskom R1.5 billion and the [Midvaal] Water Board or utility R1.1 billion. He, however, said the municipality has further entered into more revised payment arrangements with these two entities.

ALSO READ: North West Matlosana Municipality owes billions

The municipality is facing another massive headache with its debt to the ailing power utility Eskom.

Eskom on Wednesday 8 March 2023 won a court battle to attach the bank account of the city.

This comes after the troubled municipality failed to settle its monthly debt repayment to Eskom, which is R1.5 billion in the red. Over the years, the municipality has failed to keep up with payment arrangements with Eskom, plunging the city into a debt crisis.

On Wednesday, Tsolela told residents who gathered at the municipal hall in Klerksdorp for the Mayoral Imbizo, that despite challenging the court order, Eskom won in the end.

OFM News