Villagers at Mount Fletcher in the Eastern Cape have opted to build a wooden bridge to stem the loss of human and animal lives while crossing a local river.
The community at Upper Tsitsana collected R50 from each household to buy the material needed for construction.
Two years ago, three school girls died trying to cross the river.
Nosandile Makelemi narrowly escaped drowning with her two siblings in January. She says the ordeal traumatized them
“At the beginning of January, I was taking my sister in law to the doctor. It was me and her daughter. When we get here, the river is full and she was scared to cross. We nearly drowned and when we got to the bus, we were soaking wet. It is very painful because members of the same family nearly died. We narrowly escaped. During funerals, corpse can also be swept away trying to cross, the people try to locate it (sic). It’s painful to live here because of this river. Three Makheleni family members nearly died here,” says Nosandile Makelemi.
Municipal Manager at Elundin Municipality, Khaya Gashe says the municipality is planning to construct a pedestrian bridge worth over R7 million.
“I can confirm that this pedestrian bridge is part of our integrated development plan and it is set to be implemented in the 2019-2020 financial year at a cost of R7.4 million which involves three bridges to be constructed. The road itself is about 12.2 kilometres. So, the bridge will be implemented by the municipality during the next financial year,” explains Gashe.
