Durban - KwaZulu-Natal department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) is hopeful the repairs to hundreds of access roads damaged by the recent storms will be done in time for the national elections on Wednesday.
“Department is racing against time to ensure that all voting stations and access roads leading to them that were damaged during the Easter weekend floods which struck the coastal areas of the province are repaired on the voting day so these facilities can be used by the IEC and voters without hindrance,” it said in a statement.
“The task is enormous by any measure with as many as 233 reported instances of damage to access roads to voting stations or voting stations themselves,” said Cogta MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube.
It said of the 233 reported incidents of damage to the elections infrastructure in municipalities, most damaged access roads and voting stations were in uMzumbe and eThekwini.
Other municipalities from where damage reports were filed included uMfolozi, uMhlathuze, Mthonjaneni, uMzimkhulu, uMdoni and Ray Nkonyeni. The coastal areas of the province were also where most other damage occurred.
“KZN Cogta continues to coordinate and oversee these efforts and it remains confident that it can attend to all the reported challenges before the voting day,” said Dube-Ncube.