A fed-up Gauteng community recently bought a tonne of asphalt to fix over 100 potholes — one as big as a duck pond — after waiting months for authorities to attend to the problem.
They are among scores of South Africans who are digging into their own pockets or raising funds to fix crumbling suburb streets, highways and vital gravel routes in farming areas, after their calls for help from local authorities have gone unheard.
Agricultural union TLU SA recently petitioned transport minister Fikile Mbalula to declare the state of SA’s roads a danger to life and a threat to agricultural and economic sustainability, after the death of two Limpopo farmers on a pothole-ridden road.
In a parliamentary answer session earlier this year, Mbalula admitted the road-maintenance backlog was bad and getting worse.
The slow response of authorities has pushed citizens to take matters into their own hands.
Michael Steyn, of the Honeydew policing forum in Johannesburg, led efforts by the community of Constantia Village in Roodepoort to fix more than 100 potholes last month.
“After months of logging calls, dating as far back as September last year, two weeks ago they decided to repair the roads. They used more than one and a half tonnes of tar because they were just tired of the situation.
“As I have a bit of knowledge of fixing potholes, which we did in my area of Weltevreden Park, I helped the Constantia community with their efforts.”
Steyn said he and other policing forum patrollers had to fix a huge pothole on Christiaan de Wet Road, also in Roodepoort, after several cars had tyre blowouts.
“One morning we received calls of about seven cars on the side of the road, all with blown-out tyres.”
Local hardware store Chamberlains donated 11 bags of cold tar for them to attend to the pothole.
“How long do we sit back and wait for authorities to attend to this problem? We can’t sit around forever while people’s cars are being damaged and lives threatened by poor road conditions,” said Steyn.
City of Johannesburg spokesperson Nthatisi Modingoane said residents are not allowed to carry out repairs on its road infrastructure.
“Teams have managed to significantly reduce the pothole backlog in all regions through the A Re Sebetseng model aimed to address the backlog of road defects accumulated over the Covid-19 lockdown period.
Modingoane said the Johannesburg Road Agency (JRA) workforce was limited as a result of the regulations, which has since returned to full capacity and is trying to reduce road defects.
“Daily maintenance of road infrastructure continues, which means road defects that were not resolved will still be attended to.
“The JRA’s regional teams are trained and have the technical expertise to undertake road repairs, they do so with the correct materials and tools and do so, within the required guidelines of the CSIR, which ordinary citizens aren’t equipped with.
“Most importantly, the JRA regional teams, aside from contractors appointed by the entity and contractors appointed via the City of Johannesburg’s public-private partnerships (PPPs), are the only ones authorised to carry out road maintenance.”
We woke up one morning recently and decided we would fix this road at our expense. We know so many people who have had accidents on this road. It’s not about being antigovernment. It’s about being pro-life.
— Assagay resident Jason McCall
Modingoane said residents must report road defects to the platforms available.
In Durban, community activist Zain Soosiwala of security group Ethekwini Secure took it upon himself to repair potholes on high traffic volume roads.
“We have repaired potholes over the years. The recent floods made the situation bad in certain areas. We reported it several times but were told by certain municipal officials not to do anything because they were dealing with it.
“Normal potholes became craters. About 14 vehicles had tyre blowouts and several others veered off the road.”
The problem spots were Alpine Road in Overport, the M13 highway and on the N3 highway near Durban’s Tollgate bridge.
On the busy N3, Soosiwala and a team, slowed down traffic with the help of police and tow truckers, to work on the pothole that was posing a danger to motorists.
“We logged calls, but there was a lack of response. No lives are going to be lost on my watch, I had to do something about it.”
Soosiwala said he and his team of about 10 paid for material, machinery and skilled labour to fix the potholes in the Overport area.
They used sand to temporarily fix the pothole on the N3, which 10 vehicles hit in one night.
“We normally go about our work quietly, but we took to social media and publicised our efforts to shame the municipality into acting.
“It did work, every place that we filled the potholes, the municipality followed up with work the next day.”
Over 100 — the number of potholes repaired by the Constantia Village residents.
40 — the number of potholes fixed by Assagay resident Jason McCall.
— IN NUMBERS:
In Assagay, west of the city, residents Jason McCall and Marco Crestani have fixed more than 40 potholes on Kassier Road, which the locals have dubbed “death road”.
“We woke up one morning recently and decided we would fix this road at our expense. We know so many people who have had accidents on this road. It’s not about being antigovernment. It’s about being pro-life,” said McCall.
The eThekwini municipality did not respond to a TimesLIVE Premium request for comment.
Free State Agriculture (FSA) started a fundraising drive to enable farmers to buy bags of tar to fix the roads which have claimed lives and hampered the delivery of their harvests.
“We have a choice in this country: we can choose to be victims of the government by accepting the fruits of their mismanagement, or we can decide, in spite of circumstances, to still do everything in our power to make our environment liveable. We will not accept dilapidation,” said FSA’s Jack Amour.
In May the FSA presented a list of 20 tar and dirt roads that needed urgent attention, to the provincial government.
On the severely dilapidated R30, between Allanridge and Welkom, which is closed, 27 people have lost their lives this year.
“The floods and above-average rainfall that occurred in January and February across the province only worsened the already weakened road infrastructure.”
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