Transport minister Sindisiwe Chikunga declares war on potholes

The department of transport has launched a Vala Zonke “war room” to monitor and manage pothole repairs.

Transport minister Sindisiwe Chikunga officially opened the facility at the Sanral central operations centre in Centurion on Monday. The war room will be the central hub where all pothole-related issues will be addressed and resolved. It will have a dedicated team from various clusters to co-ordinate the government’s efforts to address the country’s pothole problem, as well as to monitor service delivery in repairing potholes. 

“Because there are over 250 road authorities in the country, there is a need to create a single portal for the public to report potholes and for this system to automatically redirect the complaint to the correct roads authority down to the correct maintenance depot level and to have a monitoring, tracking and feedback system in place,” she said.

Former transport minister Fikile Mbalula announced Vala Zonke (“close all” in isiZulu) in August to deal with the potholes across the country. The national campaign to fix potholes is a joint effort by the nine provinces and all 278 municipalities.

It introduced a new Vala Zonke pothole app which the public can use to report potholes in their vicinity.

The country’s road infrastructure maintenance backlog is estimated to be more than R200bn and 40% of the provincial network is reported to have reached the end of its life cycle. It’s estimated that 80% of the national road network is now older than its 20-year design life, Mbalula said at the time.

South Africa has a road network of 750,000km, the 11th longest in the world, said Chikunga.

Sanral has been appointed as the co-ordinating agency to drive the Vala Zonke campaign, which included the harmonisation of all data and information on potholes and providing the technology and technical knowledge to ensure quality delivery on the campaign.

Chikunga said road authorities have been experiencing various challenges relating to the continuous deterioration in the condition of roads including a lack of resources for road maintenance, ageing infrastructure, inadequate funding and the lack of skills.

She said the establishment of the war room was a strong indication of the severity of the situation.

The initiative follows the department of transport recently announcing the launch of a pilot programme in the North West to use nanotechnology to reinforce rural roads and make them more resistant to environmental factors.

The term refers to using chemical reactions and processes to reinforce road surfaces. The department said nanotechnology solutions such as nano-silanes, hydrophobicity, nano-polymers and new-age (Nano) modified emulsions (NME), which have been used to protect buildings from adverse weather conditions, could help extend the life of roads and reduce the damage caused by overloading.