30 October 2006
Siyabonga Maphumulo
The upgrade of the Quality Street Interchange on the Chief Albert Luthuli Highway (M4) has put the city among the best when it comes to municipal engineering. The city was named by the Institution of Municipal Engineers of South Africa as the overall winner in the Roads and Stormwater category at their annual awards held recently.
The achievement came after VelaVKE Engineers, one of the consulting firms involved in the Southern freeway upgrade submitted the Quality Street Bridge project as an entry on behalf of the city, to the institution for consideration in the 2006 awards for excellence in engineering.
Speaking on behalf of the engineers who had lent a hand during the rehabilitation of the bridge, Lee D'eathe, who is the Area Manager in the South Durban Basin area, said the award recognised the hard work that had gone into the Southern freeway upgrade. He said the patience shown by commuters who had used the Southern freeway during the upgrade in the past year, had paid off.
"The Quality Street interchange has created a less congested gateway to the city centre and has brought the city an award," he said. D'eathe also congratulated the contractors who had been involved in the project. Adrian Peters, who heads the city's Engineering Department, said the award showed the city was nationally competent in creating winning projects.
He said although industry trends showed that there was a general shortage of engineers, the city had shown that it was not short-skilled in the engineering field. "That this project was completed successfully shows we still have rare skills, this has also been made evident by the Engineering Excellence award," he said.
Presentation for Seminar
