Gauteng residents fed up with the state of their roads have been taking repairs into their own hands, but the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) has warned that doing could lead to severe consequences.
In a recent interview on 702, JRA acting CEO Louis Nel said that city residents who attempt to repair potholes by themselves are breaking the law.
A new pandemic
South Africa’s road infrastructure has been rapidly deteriorating over the past few years, with the National Roads Agency (Sanral) estimating that the country now has around 25 million potholes – a 67% increase in the last five years.
Given that it can cost anywhere from R700 to R1,500 to repair a single pothole, the country is looking at a tab ranging anywhere from R17.5 billion up to R37.5 billion to fix every single one of these hazards.
Many of these potholes can be blamed on poor upkeep and a lack of maintenance from administering authorities, according to Sanral.
For this reason, many South Africans have taken it upon themselves to address the situation, with one of the most common practices being spray painting the potholes as a way to both warn oncoming motorists and call attention to the abysmal road conditions.
Other residents have been attempting to fix the potholes themselves by filling them with bricks, stones, and concrete, but the JRA has issued a warning that permission from the city is required before attempting road repairs of any kind
“As much as we want to appreciate [the citizens’ repairs] for doing that, there is a by-law that prevents people from doing that,” said Nel.
Official repair agencies need to follow guidelines and keep their work at a certain standard to ensure that the potholes do not re-open – all of which cannot be said of residents’ makeshift efforts.
It also leads to issues of accountability, with Nel describing an incident where a makeshift repair left a stone jutting out of the road, which was then flung up by a motorist’s tyre and cracked a windscreen.
“The liability now shifts to whoever interfered with that pothole,” he said. “It’s important for people not to do [repairs], and to not deface the city by spray painting anything on the road.”
The JRA is looking at different approaches to the pothole situation, including one where small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) could potentially be trained to assist with repairs.
The JRA has also allocated its remaining budget for the year to road fixes and said that it had requested “a substantial amount of money” to continue to be able to do so.
In the past, the roads agency has signed service licence agreements with third parties for pothole repairs, with the assurance that it would send inspectors to look at the quality of the work done.
Keyword: Fed-up South Africans are fixing potholes themselves – Breaking the law in the process