“Residents in this area have always had flooding problems due to the open dams that were established with no supporting water infrastructure some 15 or 16 years ago. When the community opened the bank near the dam to improve their water access, it worsened the flooding situation and led to a decline in residential conditions,” explains Pierre Tchoundou, Managing Director of Tigana Consulting Engineers.

The upgrading project was funded by the Chris Hani District Municipality and involved the development of the Mlungisi Road and stormwater services in the Queenstown area. “This meant that we had to upgrade the existing township design before we could commence with the rehabilitation of the road and storm water services,” says Bulelani Silayi from Tigana Consulting, adding that they used Civil Designer to complete the actual design in less than three weeks.

“We started the project by upgrading the drawings for the existing gravel roads. This was followed by a cleaning expedition on all the storm water pipes. Our role during the project, was largely in a project management capacity and we liaised with various bodies in order to finalise developments,” says Bulelani, explaining that the large township area will output bulk low cost housing options for residents in the near future.

Although there were many members at Tigana that were involved in the project, the team members worked harmoniously together without workflow interruptions. “We regulated activities by conducting daily meetings in order to allocate responsibilities and reduce duplication of tasks,” says Pierre.

According to Pierre, the groundwork of the product involved an extensive survey that was handled by Nzelenzele Preston and Medcalf Land Surveyors and the services of Swift Construction Company based in Queenstown. “Once we received all the data collected during the survey, we were able to create a cadastral layout of the area so that plans for the existing services could be created.”

“Our decision to use local workers led to greater community co-operation and we could therefore rely on residents’ input during the project. The tender stipulated a total of 120 workers per day which included the provision of a transportation service,” explains Pierre, adding that the transportation service often affected the team’s structural planning during the project.

The first phase of the venture has been completed in September 2004. “In the last few months our project team has entered into discussions with various bodies in order to conform to the specifications as prescribed in the tender. After weeks of negotiations we have finally made some progress and we are pleased with the end result of phase one,” says Pierre as the rest of his team members’ smile in agreement.