JRA is working to fill up potholes
JOBURG– The roads in Diesploot are among many in the city in need of repair by the JRA.
The Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) believes it is on track to tackle the ‘war on potholes’ in the City after announcing at the end of last year that they were embarking on a six-week catch-up plan on service delivery backlog.
According to a media release by JRA, the programme, which utilised private emerging contractors, began on 6 November last year. Sanele Zondi, JRA head of department in public relations said, “We could only work with an average of six teams on a given day due to [the fact that] capacity at our depots was reduced
“Level 1 contractors focused on skoffeling [hoeing/removing weeds] by keeping curbsides clean, whereas Level 2 contractors focused on pothole repairs and reinstatements.”
Zondi added, “Given limited resources and the rainy season, we opted to focus on repairs of potholes, cleaning of storm water infrastructure and skoffeling. To maximise the impact of the limited resources, we chose to focus on three regions per week, with more resources allocated to the region with more potholes reported.”
Upon following up with JRA with their catch-up plan in February, spokesperson of JRA, Mosa Makhalima said the plan is still ongoing in all regions.
Shadow MMC of Transport, Sean Kreusch expressed immense concern for the current state of JRA and their possible shortage of materials. “Depots are currently filling potholes with sand and gravel as there is still a struggle for an adequate amount of tar to be used. To fill the potholes.
“We are falling behind on road repairs and projects. There is still so much more to be done on our roads,” he said.
Makhalima said, “Since the beginning of the year until the end of January, 22 000 potholes have been closed.”
She concluded, “Our delays are caused by heavy rains that we are receiving during this season, the numbers keep on increasing.”
