Improved A Re Sebetseng JRA Blitz returns in July

MMC for Transport Funzela Ngobeni said he is pleased to announce that in just four months the highly successful A Re Sebetseng service delivery blitz campaign has repaired the equivalent of 112 699 potholes across the seven regions of the City of Johannesburg.

Spearheaded by the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA), the accelerated service delivery initiative filled 26 217 potholes and completed 21 620.65m² of deep patching. The latter translates to 86 482 potholes (a standard JRA pothole measures 0.25m²).

Other notable achievements of the campaign include:

• 222 025m of road markings/copy painting completed

• 1 622.66m of damaged guardrails replaced

• 1 984 kerb inlets (stormwater drains) unblocked

“Despite these achievements, we have decided to review how A Re Sebetseng will be rolled out beginning in July.

Currently, 90% of the JRA’s resources (general workers, fleet and plant) are dedicated to a single region for a week or two, depending on the volume of work that needs to be completed, to focus on pothole repairs, deep patching, reinstatements, unblocking stormwater infrastructure, repairing or completely rebuilding traffic signals and replacing damaged guardrails.

“While this method was decided on to achieve maximum, visible impact in each region, we have decided to review this model and introduce a 50/50 deployment,” he said.

This means, beginning July, the JRA will deploy only half of its capacity during a regional blitz while the other half remain at their depots to complete repairs and maintenance in their respective regions.

The campaign will rotate from Region A up to G, without following any particular order.

“It should be clearly understood that the original deployment method was intended to compensate for those depots that were under-resourced but crucially to strike a serious blow against the service query backlogs that had accumulated during almost two years of Covid-19 restrictions when JRA general workers were unable to work on a full-time basis.

“This was because JRA was not declared an essential service, meaning that routine repairs and maintenance could not take place as was expected.

“So, in the absence of the 90/10 deployment, the City would certainly have had regions with backlogs not addressed, resulting in actual skewed service delivery. It is for this reason that I regard A Re Sebetseng as the very essence of equitable service delivery,” noted Ngobeni.

As part of the improved A Re Sebetseng, other crucial measures will be introduced to accelerate service delivery, including:

• Appointing a panel of routine road maintenance external service providers to attend to some minor capital works and backlogs in the new financial year and beyond. The process is in the procurement stage.

• The use of the JRA’s Road Surfacing Depot on an “as and when” basis for service requests that require deep patching and skin patching. The regional depots, through routine inspection, will identify roads that need attention and the RSD depot will develop a schedule based on submissions and their capacity to roll out the plan across the city.

• The capturing of every works order on the current system (Hansen) by the regional depots’ planning team in line with all the completed works.

“The recently allocated budget of R918m for repairs and maintenance, as well as R1.1b for capital projects, will assist JRA to begin the difficult journey of addressing the City’s backlog of R37.7b for roads alone.

“Despite the challenges, I appreciate how A Re Sebetseng has highlighted the glaring inter-regional and intra-regional infrastructure disparities that must be attended to with urgency.

“For that to be successful, we must marshal the resources of the city to where there is the greatest need.

“Within the coming weeks, I will ensure that JRA produces its plans within the newly approved budget for improving our road network and present these plans to the residents of Johannesburg. This will be done for residents to believe in an improving road network regardless of regional or geographical considerations,” explained Ngobeni.