Sanral sceptical about claims South Africa has 25 million potholes

Cape Town – The SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) says it is “improbable” and “unlikely” that the country has 25 million potholes on its roads.

In a presentation at the South African Roads Federation (SARF) Conference held in Cape Town during October last year, Sanral noted that one of the speakers, a former SARF president, Mutshutshu Nxumalo, claimed there were more than 25 million potholes on South Africa’s roads.

In a statement released on Sunday, Sanral said it had reservations about the figure.

“The national roads agency would like to clarify that the estimate of 25 million potholes was not derived from Sanral but was presented at an event in which it participated.

“Sanral has reservations about this figure. Given that South Africa has a paved network of 168 000 kilometres, 25 million would equate to 149 potholes for every kilometre, which is improbable and unlikely.”

Sanral spokesperson, Vusi Mona, said they did not dispute that South Africa has a pothole crisis.

“We must be realistic about the nature and extent of the problem.

“We recognise the work done by so many municipalities and provincial departments in fixing potholes on their respective roads.

“We are, however, unable to provide reliable statistics as to the exact number of potholes which have been repaired to date and will be requiring more administrative cooperation from the various authorities to actively report their progress so that we can have a more accurate grasp of the progress made across the country.”

Meanwhile, nearly 27 000 incidents of potholes have been reported through its Pothole App launched in August last year.

The National Department of Transport launched the national campaign to fix potholes, dubbed Operation Vala Zonke, on August 8, with a call for a joint effort by the nine provinces and all 278 municipalities, comprising eight metropolitan, 44 district and 226 local municipalities.

The department also called on the private sector and the public to assist in eradicating potholes on South Africa’s roads.

Sanral was appointed as the coordinating agency to drive the campaign.

The entity said some 51 271 citizens had downloaded the free app – available on IOS and Android phones – and reported some 26 699 potholes to date.

The Pothole App allows for the user to take a picture of the pothole, while the system automatically records the GPS location, eventually sending the information to the relevant authority.

“A total of 618 potholes have been reported on Sanral roads to date; 475 of these were in the Northern Region; 72 in the Eastern Region; 60 in the Southern Region; and 11 in the Western Region.

“All these were fixed and those that haven’t are still within the 48-hour widow that we have set ourselves at Sanral,” said Sanral’s Engineering Executive, Louw Kannemeyer.

Mona, added that the first six months of the Vala Zonke campaign had shown some success, but a massive inter-governmental effort would be required to overcome the scourge on a much wider scale.

“For our part, Sanral has a mandate which covers more than 23 000km of national roads and we can give updates about potholes that have been fixed (in) the national road network. While we are aware of work that has and is being done by provincial and municipal roads authorities in fixing potholes on the roads, they are responsible for, Sanral is not in a position to authoritatively give account on these,” Mona said.

Cape Times