Pretoria - Motorists in Gauteng, like residents in other provinces across South Africa have often used social media to vent their boiling frustrations over the existence of potholes on numerous roads.
Often, several pictures are posted on social media platforms showing damaged tyres, rims, or the vehicles. Insurance companies are reportedly smiling all the way to the bank as many motorists sign up for the now trendy additional tyre insurance.
But the man in charge of the province’s complex road networks and transport infrastructure, Gauteng MEC for Public Transport and Roads Infrastructure, Jacob Mamabolo has been leading a tremendous campaign to patch every pothole, repair each broken road and rehabilitate the damaged bridges.
Often photographed by newspaper cameramen in work suits and overalls holding some machinery for patching roads or filling up potholes, Mamabolo told IOL that due to the severity of the need to fix Gauteng’s roads, the work he leads is actually intensified on weekends.
“As the provincial government of Gauteng, we have long recognised that the Covid-19 pandemic had brought devastation on the road network in terms of the backlogs we have accumulated, when we were having the hard lockdown. That was exacerbate by the heavy rains that we saw in 2021, even worse at the beginning of this year. That has meant massive difficulties on the roads,” said Mamabolo in an interview.
“We have been running what we call the Smart Mobility Weekends, which are programmes that we do on Saturdays and Sundays. This was in recognition of the severity of the challenges on the roads, knowing that the work we do during the week is not enough to give us decisive response to crack the backlogs that have accumulated,” he said.
Mamabolo also highlighted that the provincial roads were not in such a bad state, in terms of a recent assessment, but the majority of roads frustrating motorists are owned by municipalities.
“That is why the Smart Mobility programme on weekends does not only do provincial roads, but it also gets into supporting our municipalities. We partner with them particularly on Saturdays and Sundays, while work continues during the week. We have been doing pothole patching throughout 2021 and major road rehabilitation.
“We have done 21 roads rehabilitation in Emfuleni, and we still have 32 roads to do. As the province, we did the first of its kind, the government service delivery app, leveraging smart technology for community members to report potholes to us. I can tell you now, the provincial app is doing very well. The app is available both on the Google app store and on the Apple platform,” he said.
At a provincial level, Mamabolo said his teams are repairing numerous potholes as they are reported through the smart app.
“The public has welcomed our app. Our response, at provincial level, is quite powerful. When people report potholes, we are fixing them. The biggest challenge of it all is on the municipal roads. The response level there is not at a level where we expect it to be,” he said.
In celebrating Mandela Day last month, Mamabolo led his department’s road maintenance drive in the City of Johannesburg, in line with the provincial strategic objective of “Growing Gauteng Together Through Smart Mobility”.
On the day, departmental staff conducted pothole patching, grass cutting and road markings maintenance along the Golden Highway, among other activities.
PotholeFixGP is available from Google Play Store, and will soon be available on Huawei and Apple App stores.
IOL