Sanral clarifies 25m potholes
THE SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) has clarified claims that South Africa’s roads have 25 million potholes.
The clarification comes a day after Sanral said collaboration was vital to fixing potholes on national, provincial and municipal roads.
Yesterday, Sanral said it wished to clarify claims circulating in the public domain about the 25 million potholes.
Sanral said that in a presentation at the SA Roads Federation (SARF) Conference held in Cape Town in October 2022, one of the speakers, former SARF president Mutshutshu Nxumalo, claimed there were more than 25 million potholes on South Africa’s roads.
The agency said the estimate of 25 million potholes was not derived from Sanral but was presented at an event in which it participated.
Sanral said it 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: “We do not dispute that South Africa has a pothole crisis and we remain committed to working with provinces and municipalities to address it. However, we must be realistic about the nature and extent of the problem.
“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 co-operation from the various authorities to actively report on progress.”
Mona emphasised that feedback and opinions are important to road authorities because they reflect the experience of road users.
“We take these seriously. But we must be careful when using statistical data so that we don’t exaggerate the challenges we are facing.”
On Saturday, Sanral said it had noted the public’s interest and commentary on potholes and the Vala Zonke campaign.
The national Transport Department launched the national campaign to fix potholes, dubbed Operation Vala Zonke, on August 8, 2022, calling for a joint effort by the nine provinces and all 278 municipalities, comprising eight metropolitan, 44 districts and 226 local municipalities.
The department also called on the private sector and the public to assist in eradicating potholes.
Sanral was appointed as the co-ordinating agency to drive the campaign, which included the harmonisation of all data and information on potholes and providing the technology and technical knowledge to ensure quality delivery of the campaign.
The agency, therefore, launched the Sanral Pothole App to enable the public to report potholes easily. About 51 271 citizens have downloaded the free app – available on IOS and Android phones – and reported about 26 699 potholes. The app allows the user to take a picture of the pothole, while the system automatically records the GPS location, sending on the information to the relevant authority, depending on the location.
Sanral said that in line with its Roads Repair and Maintenance Policy, it has swiftly responded to and repaired all potholes reported on the national road network.
“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 window that we have set ourselves at Sanral,” said Sanral engineering executive Louw Kannemeyer.
Mona said the first six months of the Vala Zonke campaign had shown some success in providing the public with a single pothole reporting app that can be used on all roads in South Africa, providing a centralised consolidated view of all reported potholes. This enabled focused engagements between the Transport Department and relevant authorities to fix potholes but a massive inter-governmental effort would be required to overcome the scourge on a much wider scale.
Mona said South Africa’s total road network is estimated at 750 000 kilometres, the longest of any African country and the 11th longest in the world. Responsibility for building and maintaining the network is divided between Sanral, provincial and local government authorities. Sanral manages national roads and has a network of 23512km of paved roads. Provinces are responsible for just over 270 000km (46 500km paved) while the municipal network is estimated at just over 320 000km (nearly 88 000km paved) of the proclaimed network. The rest are unproclaimed gravel roads (mainly serving rural communities), not owned or maintained by any road authority.
“Sanral has a mandate, which covers more than 23 000km of national roads. We can give updates about potholes fixed (on) the national road network. We are aware of work that has (been) and is being done by provincial and municipal roads authorities in fixing potholes they are responsible for, Sanral is not in a position to authoritatively give account on these.”
Mona acknowledged that Operation Vala Zonke has challenges. For example, getting data from the other road authorities is still a challenge but progress is being made, he said.
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