The City of Tshwane is hard at work developing a plan to implement a turnaround strategy for its potholes problem.
Roads and Transport MMC Sheila Lynn Senkubuge said her department set up a team to look at the optimisation plan, envisaged to be completed in two months.
“What we are going to do in respect of that plan is to look at the best ways to repair the potholes. We had incidents where we were not able to get asphalt quickly enough. That meant that potholes were not repaired quickly enough,” she said.
The plan would ensure that the department had all the resources, which not only included the budget, but the materials needed to implement a fast turnaround plan.
“This will enable us to get to a point where we can say a pothole has been reported and it has been repaired within the shortest space of time,” Senkubuge said.
She said the City had people on standby to address potholes likely to develop during the upcoming rainy season.
Asked about how widespread the problem was, she said: “For us one pothole is one too many.
"We want to make sure that we maintain the city’s infrastructure and rehabilitate it.”
She said there were roads that needed to be constructed and maintained while others had to be resurfaced.
She said the City would prioritise the fixing of roads that had not been maintained over a long period of time.
Senkubuge said the repairs of potholes fell within the responsibility of regional departments, which also managed their budgets.
She was not in a position to disclose the budget for repairing potholes, and said the regions would be able to do so.
During his budget speech in May, Executive Mayor Solly Msimanga said the City put aside
R6 billion for the maintenance of infrastructure such as roads and underground water pipes for this financial year.
He said the amount was a 21% increase on the budget as compared to the previous year.
He also cautioned that the amount was not enough as the City would “need in the region of
R99 billion to get our infrastructure to be at the level that everybody will getting services that they deserve”.
Last week one of the victims of the potholes, Theunis Brink from Pretoria North, scored a victory against the City in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria.
He claimed more than R900 000 in damages after he injured his leg when he stepped into a pothole.
He was hospitalised for more than two months, and initially doctors wanted to amputate his badly injured leg.