Joburg’s crumbling roads: The political scramble ahead of the G20 summit

Johannesburg mayor Dada Morero promised to prioritise the G20 routes which delegates will use when they pop in for the Coke and bun talk shop in November.

Then, he got into hot water and had to do a row back when residents took him to task and so he promised to do the inner city instead.

On Friday, he got the eThekwini treatment and scored a presidential working group to help him turn everything around.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is a Johannesburg resident, is appalled – but, thankfully, not shocked– at Joburg’s state.

Why only now is the subject of another column, but perhaps the president is horrified by the prospect of being embarrassed by all the global leaders seeing our world-class African city up close and personal while their bodyguards change the burst tyres on their limousines.

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The road to the Sandton Convention Centre is particularly tricky – whichever way you come.

As for Sandton Drive, which some elements in the ANC are keen to rename after the Palestinian guerilla Leila Khaled, the less said the better.

It’s ironic that a key arterial routes to the richest square mile in Africa is in the shape it is.

It’s not alone, there are many other key routes in other cities that are also woefully neglected.

Few can hold a candle to the ruined road surfaces in upmarket suburbs like Smith Street in East London’s Gonubie or Kekewich Drive in Kimberley’s Monument Heights, which are probably in worse nick than some of the thoroughfares in Gaza – which is actually war-torn.

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Those are just my choices. I’m sure readers have their own.

In fact, there probably wouldn’t be enough space in the newspaper if the editor ran a competition.

Sadly, we can’t host the G20 in all South Africa’s towns and cities this year.

It’s a pity Morero didn’t get started last week, he might have saved me hours of hassle and considerable expense at the weekend replacing two rims and their shredded tyres and getting the steering on my wife’s car fixed, after she went over a pothole on Sandton Drive during rush hour.

It’s a boon for the tow truck operators and the Automobile Association but at what stage will insurance companies start claiming force majeure on potholes the same way they did on household electronics and appliances when Eskom lost the plot on load shedding?

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