Fixing potholes will put Gauteng on road to prosperity, but how best to go about it?

The Johannesburg Road Agency’s costly plan to launch an app for residents to report potholes left them with only a huge hole in the budget, but it is shifting gears with the various municipalities to maintain and fix roads.

In partnership with the Gauteng department of transport, the agency has launched the Smart Mobility Weekends project, by which it has identified 51 areas where work is needed.

Topping the priority list are areas close to the city centre — Hillbrow, Malvern, Doornfontein, Observatory, Parktown, Yeoville, Turffontein and Gillview.

Fixing potholes forms a large part of the work, alongside sprucing up road markings, scraping of surfaces and replacing signage. Gauteng transport is supplying some materials and resources.

If you want to get things, goods, people and services moving, you need to make sure that you look after the road infrastructure.

—  Gauteng transport's Theo Nkonki 

Figures provided by the provincial department of transport revealed it had managed to repair an average of 50 potholes a weekend. It sees the project running for at least six months.

The province, particularly the Johannesburg municipality, has been feeling the pinch of thecity’s deteriorated roads.

Themba Mathibe , spokesperson for the JRA, said over the last year more than 318 motorists or businesses had lodged claims for damages to their vehicles sustained as a result of the condition of the roads. This has resulted in the city forking out over R10m in damages.

The road revamp and damage claims come after the city poured over R15m into the now defunct Find&Fix mobile application, which was meant for the use of pothole reports.

“The mobile app was procured in 2014 and the contract ran for a period of five years. The JRA CEO instructed that an investigation be conducted ... it revealed that the terms and conditions of contract of the app were poorly crafted and resulted in the JRA suffering unnecessary risks,” said Mathibe.

DA councillor Mike Wood said the allegation the JRA was referring to was the contract with the service provider, which resulted in the app not being the property of either the JRA or the city’s transport department, even after the hefty price tag.

While the JRA has confirmed it is in search of another app developer, Wood said the DA would oppose the procurement.

“One wonders how many potholes could be repaired for R15,429,634.32.

“So we have an app that cost an arm and a leg, that does not work and does not belong to the city. The JRA is wanting to go out on tender for another app. The DA will fight this, exercising oversight on ratepayers’ hard-earned money,” he added.

While it was not immediately clear how much the city was prepared to invest in a replacement app, it was allocating R53m for the Smart Mobility Weekends as well as the Accelerated Service Delivery project, aimed at revamping  and maintaining the city’s roads.

Mathibe however, stressed that this budget would not be enough to cover all the problematic roads and a system was in place to decide which roads would be attended to.

Theo Nkonki of Gauteng’s transport department stressed that with Gauteng being one of the smallest provinces but with its high congestion and highly populous nature, road maintenance was at the heart of boosting the province’s economy.

“If you want to get things, goods, people and services moving, you need to make sure that you look after the road infrastructure,” he said, adding that roads were the blood veins of the economy.

The SA Institution of Civil Engineering agreed.

“The planning of streets and roads between the different levels of government needs to take place in a coherent, coordinated way. Funding allocation plays a huge role in the effective maintenance of the system of networks,” SAICE transportation division chairperson Friedrich Slabbert said.

“Government has to perform a balancing act between social needs (housing, schools and health services for example) and infrastructure improvements that support economic growth.

“More people with jobs lead to more potential for taxation of individuals that would increase the income of government, and again give government an opportunity to spend it considering its own priorities,” Slabbert added.