In 2020, Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula admitted in a written parliamentary question-and-answer session that government was paying millions to South Africans for damage caused by potholes.

Two years later, the road maintenance crisis in South Africa is still a hot potato issue.

At the end of January, Gillie Fick (78), a farmer in the Soutpansberg district, died on the R522 between Louis Trichardt and Vivo. This road is full of giant potholes.

The next day, Jan Oost – a FF+ councillor in the Mafube Municipality – died in an accident between Villiers and Vereeniging that was said to be caused by a pothole. His two sons and wife were seriously injured.

Despite tragedies like these, many South Africans believe not enough is being done to improve the state of South African roads and they regularly take to social media to air this common grievance.

According to Statistics SA’s Capital expenditure by the public sector report released in November, ‘public sector capital expenditure has steadily waned since 2016, declining by R82 billion. This represents a decrease of 29%’.

This corresponds with a report from business consulting firm Frost & Sullivan in June 2021, entitled South Africa’s Road construction industry – a regional look. The report showed how the provincial road network has been on a steady decline since the early 90s and cited ‘curtailed funding allocations to roads and the shrinking project output by the public sector’ as the biggest reasons for the decline.

Attorney Shando Theron of Johannesburg says when negligence can be proved, government can and has been held responsible for the loss of life, damage to property and emotional distress.

According to Theron, claims are made through the Road Accident Fund (RAF).

“The RAF is the first respondent in a claim like this, but a specific government department can be added as a second respondent,” says Theron.

“Keep in mind that the various roads in South Africa are under the supervision of either a local municipality, a provincial government or the national government, and claims should be directed towards the correct authority,” Theron says.