This came after an open letter to the agency by Ward 102 ward councillor David Potter.
Potter shared his gripes over service delivery, safety issues on roads, lacklustre maintenance and long response times.
Macozoma shed light on some of these issues.
“When we arrived in September 2012, the agency was struggling with a technical insolvency of some R157 million, an overdraft of some R177 milliion and an
over-expenditure at the end of 2011/12 of some R167 million. Right now the we have reduced the technical insolvency position to R7 million, we have a net positive cash position and at the end of 2012/13 and we had zero over-expenditure,” Macozoma said.
According to Macozoma, the agency was executing routine road maintenance, periodic maintenance and special maintenance for primarily emergency works on an ongoing basis.
They rolled out a major R1 billion road resurfacing programme, of which R100 million will be spent in 2013/14, R280 million in 2014/15, and R630 million in 2015/16 for roads in the seven regions of the city. An additional R700 million over three years will be spent on resurfacing for the M1 and M2 highways, and the Soweto Highway.
In response to long response times, Macozoma said, “On average, about 70 traffic signals are damaged per month through motor vehicle accidents. These generally require a much longer process for repairs than repairing faulty components.”
R170 million will be used to improve roads in shoddy conditions, with another R650 million planned to be used to upgrade gravel roads over the next three years in seven townships.
Macozoma added the agency has decentralised service delivery and consolidated depots across city regions. Each region now has a single depot and management structure.
They will also roll out a new marketing communications strategy in January 2014.
David Potter’s full letter:
The full response from Johannesburg Roads Agency:
