Road conditions throughout Roodepoort are horrific. One would be hard pressed to find a road that does not have at least one pothole.
This, according to ward councillors Zonè Hughes, Zander Shawe, Caleb Finn, Mboneni Tabane and Florence Roberts, who share that their best efforts to get the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) to heed their pleas for urgent road repairs are falling on deaf ears.
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According to Tabane, the councillor for Ward 127, there are several roads in his ward, which include Witpoortjie Estates, Leratong Village, Sol Plaatjie, Durban Deep, Matholesville and Goudrand, that are completely impassable.
“We don’t know what to do anymore,” he says. “Our residents look to us for answers, but we don’t have any.”
His sentiments are echoed by Ward 85 councillor, Zonè Hughes.
“I have been struggling for months to get help. JRA fixed a few really bad potholes along Topaz Road and Snipe Street this past week that I’ve been pushing for for five months, but this barely scratches the surface.”
The Roodepoort Record’s inspection of said repairs revealed that the entity only fixed the worst of the many potholes, leaving many more along the same roads untouched.
Ward 89 councillor Zander Shawe says JRA is non-existent at the moment.
“We do everything in our power to have the entity attend to the roads, but they don’t seem to be interested. We even held a ward inspection on May 7, to which JRA was invited. They did not even bother to show up.
“We log and escalate potholes with the entity, but nothing gets done, and no answers are forthcoming as to why it has come to this.”
Ward 70 councillor Caleb Finn agrees.
“It’s an ongoing battle to get JRA to attend to issues across the ward,” he says. “They remain behind on repairs, and escalations seem to go nowhere. Turnaround times on service requests have worsened by the day, with repairs taking weeks and sometimes months to complete.
“JRA is in urgent need of intervention to turn the situation around.”
Ward 83 councillor Florence Roberts is equally annoyed.
“I’ve now gotten to the point where I’ve launched petitions to try and get the entity to attend to the numerous roads in my ward that require urgent intervention.”
According to JRA’s head of regional operations, Khaya Gqibitole, JRA experienced a surge in logged calls related to service requests due to persistent rainfall from December to April, but that does not mean that the entity’s repairing and maintaining activities have slowed down.
Also read: Potholes issues persist
“The JRA continues with road maintenance initiatives. A total number of 2 690 potholes, 686m² of patching and 38m² of reinstatements throughout Region C were completed between January and March.
“We are dealing with a backlog of ageing infrastructure that requires capital interventions. Roodepoort, as one of the oldest suburbs in the city, is also dealing with the same challenges of ageing road infrastructure.”
Responding to reports that an unofficial order to only work on main roads was given, he says the rumours are not true.
“The regional depot decided to prioritise the repair of main roads as a strategy to mitigate against a rapid increase in road defects. Major roads and main arterials carry large volumes of traffic, and the JRA aims to ensure seamless mobility on these routes. The JRA regional depot has at no point stopped servicing other roads in the city.”
Gqibitole adds that there are different platforms where councillors have access to both the JRA hotline and the depot management.
“Feedback or updates are regularly given to both the councillors and communities on the reasons for delays in attending to the service requests. Councillors and residents should follow up using service request/ reference numbers they receive when logging calls, as it makes tracking easier.”
Gqibitole reiterated that the entity would not tolerate community members or residents’ associations (RAs) illegally repairing potholes.
“The Johannesburg Roads Agency, as an entity of the City of Johannesburg, is the custodian for roads within the City of Johannesburg jurisdiction and the only entity with the mandate to repair, construct, maintain and manage road infrastructure.
Also read: PRA continues to tackle potholes
“Residents or RAs are not permitted to undertake repairs on potholes or any other road infrastructure. Parties wanting to enter partnerships with the JRA or the City of Johannesburg must follow the appropriate channels. Residents are implored to log calls/ service requests to the JRA’s hotline or the City’s call centre.”
According to City of Johannesburg spokesperson Ntahtisis Modingoane, a co-production model, which includes road infrastructure repair and maintenance, is currently being refined to align with the new priorities of the government of local unity.
“The programme envisions bringing about socio-economic transformation in the lives of the people of the metropolitan municipality through the promotion of a culture of entrepreneurship.
“This will be through cooperatives that will be contracted as the City’s partners for the implementation of various work packages designed to boost service delivery.”
