BOOTS ON TAR: RAMATHUBA AND MPE BRING LIMPOPO TO A STANDSTILL AS 20KM OF ROADS RISE IN 60 DAYS
By Mpho Dube, Editor-in-Chief
The Azanian | Truth. Fearless. Unfiltered.
AZANIAFROCOMEDIA – The Catalyst of Impact
POLOKWANE — This is what happens when power walks.
Today, Wednesday, 16 September 2026, Limpopo Premier Dr Phophi Ramathuba and Polokwane Executive Mayor Cllr Makoro John Mpe turned the City Cluster into a construction site of accountability, delivering the massive Projects Visit that The Azanian announced yesterday.
At 10h00 sharp at the New Council Chamber, Jack Botes, there were no ribbons, no speeches, no boardroom lies. There were overalls. There were boots. There was tar.
Chair and Deputy Chair of the ANC in Limpopo — the two most powerful leaders in the province — walked together, and when they walk, Polokwane moves.
What they revealed on the ground left the province breathless: In just two months of the new financial year, Polokwane Municipality has undertaken more than 45 road rehabilitation and paving projects covering over 20 kilometres.
20 kilometres. In 60 days. While other metros are still in tender meetings, Polokwane is laying tar, planting trees, and switching on lights.
And today, they showed it.
Ramathuba and Mpe visited Rates Hall where municipal workers serve customers, Transit Mall where they planted trees and inspected the green mobility and public transport upgrade, Landros Mare Street, Veldspat Street, the R521 Dendron Road, and the flagship Mankweng Dual Carriageway from Paledi Mall to Mankweng Hospital.
Everywhere they went, the message was the same: delivery is not a favour. It is a right.
At Rates Hall, the Premier was welcomed by the municipality choir — voices of workers who know that service delivery starts at the counter. Inside, Ramathuba and Mpe checked how residents are received, how queues are managed, how dignity is restored when people come to pay and complain. A city that cannot respect people at Rates Hall cannot claim to love its people on the roads.
At Transit Mall, they bent down and planted trees. Not for cameras. For the future. This is Leeto La Polokwane — a city that builds roads for buses, walkways for people, and trees for shade. Mobility plus greenery. Tar plus oxygen.
Then the masterstroke — R521 Dendron Road. Here is the receipt that kills all propaganda. Polokwane Municipality did not beg for a grant. It used ITS OWN FUNDS to rehabilitate this heavy-duty road, increasing asphalt thickness from 30mm to 40mm to carry the trucks that feed Limpopo's economy.
Only a city with four consecutive unqualified audits, Top 3 in South Africa with 8.3/10, 100% spending of WSIG and RBIG, and a housing entity fixed from qualified to unqualified can do that. That is Mayor Mpe's financial muscle on the ground.
Then Mankweng — the jewel. From Paledi Mall to Mankweng Hospital, the municipality has started building a 4km dual carriageway on the R71 to Houtbosdorp Road, the University Road.
Dual. Not patch. Dual. With paved walkways for non-motorised transport so students don't walk in the dust, and solar lights so nurses, students and workers are safe at night. For the University of Limpopo community, this is not a road.
It is life.This is Reaga Polokwane. This is what happens when a Premier who storms hospitals unannounced and a Mayor who the masses call Commander in Chief walk together.
Dr Phophi Ramathuba — Limpopo's first female Premier, doctor, no-nonsense, ANC Provincial Chair. Cllr Makoro John Mpe — Deputy Chair, former Chair of Peter Mokaba Region, the man who took Polokwane from Grade 5 to Grade 6, from darkness to Top 3, from excuses to 80% roads completion.
Weak leaders send convoys. Strong leaders show up in overalls.
Today Polokwane proved: Clean books mean clean roads. Own funds mean own power. And when province and city walk together, the people don't just see progress — they walk on it.
If Polokwane works, Limpopo works. If Limpopo works, South Africa moves forward.
The Azanian was there. We saw the tar. We saw the trees. We saw the lights coming to Mankweng.
Polokwane is rising. And today, it rose on tar.
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