At last, the news we motorists have all been waiting for. Potholes will soon be a thing of the past. In case you missed the news, transport minister Sindisiwe Chikunga set up a “war room” this week to deal with the scourge of South Africa’s roads.
We’ve all been affected. Whether small or cavernous, potholes damage vehicle chassis and tyres, cause accidents and cost lives. No size of vehicle is immune. The cost to the economy is measured in billions of rand.
A few years ago, we smug South Africans used to scoff at the state of roads in neighbouring countries. “How do police identify a drunk driver in Harare?” we’d ask. “Because he drives in a straight line,” was the reply. Potholes in the Zimbabwean capital are so plentiful that sober drivers zigzag between them.
Today the joke is on us. City roads are bad enough (even without explosions like that which tore up a central Joburg road recently), but in some smaller centres, authorities seem to have given up entirely and allowed heavily potholed roads to return to nature.
Not any longer. Through the war room, Chikunga, aka Captain Pothole, will return our roads to their former glory.
The room is in the Centurion operations centre of the South African National Roads Agency Ltd (Sanral). It’s called the Vala Zonke war room, after a campaign which has apparently been making motorists’ lives easier for almost a year.
Chikunga says: “We have reflected on the progress made through the Vala Zonke campaign, observed learnings from the processes and addressed some of the practical challenges. Through this war room, we are reaffirming government’s commitment to this campaign aimed at eradicating potholes across South Africa’s road network.”
It’s not clear what progress she’s referring to. I drive all over the country and I’m not aware of any improvement. Where I live, west of Joburg, we’ve been waiting several years for the repair of deep potholes at a busy traffic junction.
Vala Zonke is intended to bring together Sanral, provincial and municipal roads bodies, freight transport groups and individuals to fashion a co-ordinated approach to eradicating potholes. There’s even a pothole app for motorists to report the latest pit.
Chikunga says this is part of a holistic response to “the rapid deterioration of the condition of the road network”.
It’s not clear what progress she’s referring to. I drive all over the country and I’m not aware of any improvement
Will it work? I hope so, but I’m not holding my breath. This government is fond of grand gestures in place of action. Ministers generally believe that saying something is akin to actually doing it.
Neither am I encouraged by the fact that the government and Sanral are only now coming to terms with what the rest of us have known for years. Sanral CEO Reginald Demana says every bit of data will help the agency respond “appropriately”. For example, “if we get recurring potholes in a specific area, that could be a sign that there is a need for a longer-lasting solution”.
“Could be” a sign? Nothing like stating the bleeding obvious! How many potholes do we know that reappear every time it rains? Of course they need a longer-lasting solution.
Am I being unnecessarily cynical? I hope so, and that Captain Pothole and her team will indeed transform South Africa’s roads for the better — though the fact that the cabinet will ultimately drive the process is not reassuring. Still, Sanral chair Themba Mhambi says the new initiative will hold the country’s various roads authorities “accountable to the people of South Africa”.
I think the best way to do that is to dig up the streets around the homes of politicians, including ministers, and force them to personally drive to and from work every day. Personal inconvenience will bring results far quicker than appeals to their supposed concern for the common good.
And while we’re at it, why not ban them from using home generators and inverters? None of them experiences the chaos the rest of us suffer daily because of load-shedding. Exposed to the daily misery, you’ll be surprised how quickly they find solutions.
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