Government’s war on potholes gets more voema

Repairs to South Africa’s almost 40 000 current reported potholes countrywide will now be monitored and managed by the Department of Transport’s Vala Zonke War Room.

Minister of Transport Sindisiwe Chikunga officially launched the War Room on Monday. It is located at the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) Central Operations Centre (COC) in Midrand.

Read: Why Joburg’s roads are in such a state

Chikunga said Sanral is the department’s coordinating agency to step in and address the challenges of fixing potholes and resurfacing roads where necessary.

She said the COC already has the appropriate infrastructure, technology and personnel to ensure effective monitoring and coordination of intervention programmes for road operations, maintenance and other road-related activities.

“The basic principle of a War Room is to bring everyone responsible for carrying out the intervention by the Department of Transport [DoT], as directed by Cabinet, for the Road Maintenance, Refurbishment and National Pothole Programme, in one room where they can communicate easier,” she said.

Chikunga stressed that Sanral will only be responsible for fixing potholes on national roads and not all potholes repairs.

She said Sanral manages national roads and has a network of 23 512km of paved roads while provinces are responsible for just over 270 000km, of which 46 500km are paved, while the municipal network is estimated at just over 320 000km, of which almost 88 000km is paved.

The rest of South Africa’s road network comprises unproclaimed gravel roads and are therefore not owned or maintained by any road authority.

Chikunga said the effects of underinvestment are evident to all who depend on South Africa’s transport system.

“The very birth of this War Room remains a strong indication of the severity of the situation, especially expressed in the state of our road network and evidence of this is highlighted by worsening traffic congestions and dangerous driving conditions or other road uses in urban and peri-urban areas.

“Most of the South African road network has reached its 20-year design life with the maintenance backlog estimated to be R197 billion,” she said.

“Insufficient budget for roads at both provincial and municipal levels continue to hinder the sector hence most of these roads are riddled with potholes.”

Sanral CEO Reginald Demana said the roads agency will coordinate the war on potholes and work in close cooperation with roads agencies at provincial and municipal level.

Get the app

“The Vala Zonke War Room is equipped to capture and report on all information that will be uploaded via the Pothole App by road users.

“The data captured will be important for Sanral to respond appropriately. For example, if we get recurring potholes in a specific area, that could be a sign that there is a need for a longer lasting solution, perhaps a redesign of the road to ensure that it is suitable to current traffic needs,” he said.

Read: Accusing government of inaction, South Africans say apps step in

Chikunga denied the launch of the War Room is a pre-2024 general election ploy, stressing that Operation Vala Zonke was launched by former transport minister Fikile Mbalula in August 2022 when there was no general election in sight.

She said that during the unfolding of the operation, the Transport Integrated Information System (ITIS) was made available to all road authorities for the provision of Centralised Repository and Asset Management Services.

Chikunga said a centralised mobile pothole reporting app – which enables the public to report potholes wherever they encounter them on any road – was developed and the DoT launched a comprehensive plan to address potholes across all spheres of government.

Chikunga said the plan envisaged having a central platform, using an automated system to:

• Allocate a complaint;

• Track progress;

• Identify and resolve delays;

• Intervene or provide support to address service delivery challenges; and

• Provide feedback to the public using the app.

“Operation Vala Zonke is therefore an integrated and comprehensive plan that drives multiple interventions to ensure that the overall condition of roads is in a safe and driveable state,” she said.

Eyes on the road(s)

DoT Deputy Director-General for Roads Christopher Hlabisa said about R13 billion a year is allocated to the nine provinces in terms of the provincial road maintenance grant (PRMG), with 25% mainly used for upgrades but excluding the fixing of potholes, refurbishment of roads and major rehabilitation.

Hlabisa said the problem the DoT has been experiencing is that it did not have line of sight of what was happening on each and every road in the country.

“With Operation Vala Zonke, we are going to be able to see what is happening, where the money is being spent and to account better, including [in terms of] the turnaround time.

“Up until now, we were not able to track and trace whether these were effective or not, but now we will be able to,” he said.

Read: Joburg’s Weltevreden Park residents fix potholes themselves for R10k

Chikunga added that it has also been agreed that one of the conditions for the transfer by the DoT of the PRMG to the nine provinces will be that each province must register on this app, and encourage the structures below them – such as the municipalities, districts and metros –to also register, to enable the War Room to track and trace what is happening on South Africa’s roads when people report potholes.

She said the provinces have also been requested to identify strategic roads so that responsibility for their maintenance can be transferred to Sanral, and many of the provinces are already doing that.

“It means these roads are beautifully constructed at Sanral standard and can actually attract the investors,” she said.

Private sector to assist by ‘adopting’ roads

Chikunga said some of South Africa’s roads had been damaged by heavy trucks used by the private sector, such as mines, farmers and so on.

She said the private sector entities responsible for this damage have been identified, and reported that many of them are willing to assist government through the “adopt a road” initiative to ensure these roads are drivable and user friendly.

Chikunga said the DoT is also identifying the cheapest way to maintain South Africa’s roads because it costs R10 million per kilometre under normal circumstances to use tar to seal roads.

New nanomaterial technologies and innovations can now be seen in the development of more resilient and yet cost-effective materials for road construction, she said.

“The use of nanotechnologies… has the potential to reduce the surfacing costs by 50% from R10 million to R3 million per km,” she said.