Fifteen kilometres or 32 roads in the Unity-Vereeniging Neighbour-hood Democratic Council were recently upgraded with asphaltic concrete under the Community Road Improvement Programme (CRIP).
The Housing and Water and Local government ministries shared oversight of the US$18.7 CRIP of which $494,452,136 was invested at Unity-Vereeniging, a report from the Government Informa-tion Agency (GINA) said. The project was commissioned at a simple ceremony held on May 7th at the Helena Primary School.
In addition to the road works it entailed the cleaning, reshaping, upgrading and realignment of 29 km of roadside drains and the construction of new drains, rehabilitation of four bridges and the construction of six culverts, the provision of safety features such as signage, markings, speed humps and the construction of a new NDC building. To date, the 14,000-strong community has seen a 12 per cent increase in the flow of traffic since the works were completed, GINA said.
In his address at the commissioning, Housing Minister Irfaan Ali said the project aimed to improve the livelihoods of residents of regions Three, Four and Six and to improve their access to social infrastructure in the regions. The works within the NDC which were undertaken by contractor H Nauth and Son were on time and within budget, and the
