Villages put stop to toll road work
VILLAGES in the Khanyayo community have blocked all contractor work for N2 Wild Coast Toll Road project at Mtentu river because they claim Sanral has not honoured an agreement.
The fight over the Wild Coast toll road is far from over with villagers, led by the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC), now claiming that Sanral’s contractors started again with access roads to the R1.8-billion bridge over the Mtentu River without signing proper agreements.
They have vowed to block the work until Sanral addresses the community.
ACC spokeswoman Nonhle Mbuthuma said the biggest issue was that no jobs had been given to villagers that are heavily affected by the access roads.
“Workers on the project are being transported by taxis in and out daily,” said Mbuthuma.
She said Sanral has broken all previous oral agreements.
“Compensation for loss of grazing and farmland was paid to a trust only known by the chief. Who agreed to that?
“Each person was asked how much they wanted for their loss and it was said it would be paid directly to the person,” she said.
Sanral’s general manager for communications, Vusi Mona, said some pronouncements about the N2 Wild Coast Road project recently made in the media contained a series of rumours, halftruths and out-of-context quotes intended to try and bring Sanral into disrepute and stir up controversy.
“We can confirm that the work on the construction of the Mtentu South Haul road was recently disrupted by the local community for approximately one-and-a-half to two weeks (though this included a scheduled long weekend taken by the contractor).
“There were no disruptions to work currently ongoing on the other three haul roads (Msikaba North and South, and Mtentu Mona.
He said the reason for the work stoppage was a community issue whereby local residents were unhappy with the manner in which their project liaison committee had distributed the allocation of work opportunities between surrounding communities and around alleged preference sought in allocating work by local Chief Sonwabile Jama.
Mona said all compensation payments were made either directly to the specific affected individual or family nominated bank account or to local community trust account overseen by trustees elected by the local community. — ziphon@dispatch.co.za North),” said