Pretoria – The City of Tshwane's roads and transport MMC Dikeledi Selowa has declared war on potholes in the metro.
The "war on potholes" campaign would be rolled out throughout all the seven regions of Tshwane as soon as the recent heavy downpours have subsided.
Selowa said: "We are waiting for the rain to subside because it is difficult to fill potholes with hot asphalt when it is raining."
The idea behind the project was to improve roads infrastructure and also address the backlog of unrepaired potholes left damaged by the rains.
"It is important to fill potholes because a lot of cars get damaged and the heavy rains also damage the roads. After every rainfall the potholes get bigger and bigger and you may end up with the roads that are washed away by the rain," Selowa said.
She indicated the City was working in collaboration with councillors from different political parties to identify roads with potholes and other structural defects.
"There are a couple of areas that have been identified and obviously I am doing this through collaboration with various councillors," she said.
She was recently in Atteridgeville, where she inspected the roads in the company of some engineers. "The idea was to come up with a plan that could be employed to repair the roads," she said.
Selowa would lead from the front in some of the “war on potholes” operations.
According to her, there was no time-frame for completing the project, but she would be pleased to work tirelessly until the state of the roads had improved.
She said there won't be additional workers hired for the project, saying the current municipal team would be at the forefront of patching the potholes.
"There is not going to be outsourcing of new employment because as you know the City does not have a lot of money. We are still trying to recover our finances," she said.
The “war on potholes” campaign followed mayor Randall Williams saying the City roads were left to deteriorate for eight months under the former administrators.
Williams said work for filling potholes was neglected because of the contractor who failed to deliver bitumen material needed for manufacturing asphalt, used for filling potholes.
Pretoria News