Chadibe gravel road torments combi drivers

Pini Bothoko | Wednesday March 19, 2014 14:44

The main issue that worries Chadibe residents is the long-standing issue of this short road.

They feel that if the road is not repaired, not only will their health continue to be in danger, but they will also always have skorokoros for cars.  This road was once in the National Development Plan (NDP) 10 but was shelved due to lack of funds for construction.

Now, what residents desperately want is to hear that the construction of the road will commerce.

The dire situation has extended to public transport owners who say that the road is damaging their cars and they are losing business. The now irate combi drivers complain that the road has huge craters and mounds.

The result is that the combi drivers are tossed hither and thither all the way to and from the village such that their bodies are always sore.

They also complain that the road releases dust that makes them arrive looking filthy and unkempt in Francistown, a city of slick.  This makes their interaction with the city slickers a challenge.

Tineni Balashiki is one such driver who for five years has been ferrying commuters between the village and Francistown. At the bus rank he could not hide his feelings when talking about his plight.

He says this gravel road is affecting his ideas of empowering himself.  He says the same applies to other combi drivers. Balashiki says that the recent rains have made the road worse such that it needs gravelling twice a month for easy car movement. Balashiki also says over the years he has not made any profit as the money he accumulates goes towards maintenance of the car. He says if there was another way to sustain himself and his family, he would leave the business.

“I spend more than an hour on that 2km distance to drop customers around the village while in that time the Borolong combi drivers would have taken more than three loads. This is too sad for our business,” he says. Another combi driver, Fadzani Chikunda says that it looks like the road has been completely abandoned.

“It damages cars shock absorbers in a way that we spend a lot of money servicing them. “Actually we service the vehicles up to twice a week.  We do not make profit, except just to buy food and service our cars. This is sad,” he says.

He goes on to say the village leaders have been complaining about the road for years but there is no hope that the road will be tarred anytime soon.

Chikunda adds that they would love to help Chadibe residents like other villagers to have public transport but the road is too bad and they will soon lose hope.

“I have continuous pain in my back because of the humps on this road.  This road is not good for our health at all.  “We need it to be tarred because it is a small portion from Tlhalogang Secondary School to the village,” he says. Ronnie Hobona says that he no longer sees the point in operating the combi anymore because there is no business at all.

He says that their combis spend most of their time in garages and in the end it will look like they are failing to provide transport to residents.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Transport and Communications Nonofo Molefhi dashed the hopes of Chadibe residents last year at a Kgotla meeting. He said that the Mandunyane/Shashemooke/Mathangwane road was shelved due to lack of funds. Molefhi advised that what could be done was to constantly grade the road. The ministry has since procured graders and some have been allocated to Francistown depot to improve the situation in the short term.