James Mahlangu, Owner

I spent eleven years running rollers and pavers for other people’s companies around the East Rand. Germiston, Boksburg, Benoni, down the R21 through the industrial belt. I liked the work. What I did not like was going back.

You lay a yard, and eighteen months later you drive past and the wheel tracks have sunk and the whole thing has cracked into a pattern like crocodile skin. Everybody blames the tar. The tar was fine. Somebody wanted the job, so they priced it without the base, and then they put good asphalt onto ground that was never going to hold it.

So in 2011 I bought a second-hand tandem roller and a bakkie and started on my own, with one rule: the base gets built, or I do not take the job. I still quote every job myself, and I still come out and measure it, because the number is only honest if somebody has stood on the ground first.

People ask me all the time whether we cannot just tar over what is there. I can. You will phone me in two years and I will not want to answer.

“I can. You will phone me in two years and I will not want to answer.”