Residents urged to hold JRA to account

Ward 102 councillor David Potter continues to encourage residents to hold the City to account.

Potter recently called for residents on social media to share their concerns with the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) by posting pictures of any outstanding queries. Just over 50 people in the ward began sharing photos of potholes, outstanding reinstatements, damaged road signs and missing drain covers, just to name a few.

Many of these calls were logged with the JRA months ago, some even years ago, but the residents are still waiting for feedback and/or a resolution.

“The JRA is a real struggle and has been for some time. The entity is largely broken; lacking supply chain management which results in lack of basic materials [and] the JRA asphalt plant that has not worked in nearly a year is largely the reason for the non-repair of potholes,” he said.

Potter has continuously worked to advocate for the residents over the years as well as hold the City to account himself. More recently, on 16 February Potter, with the support of various ward councillors in the area, submitted a presentation at the Section 79 Transport Committee meeting highlighting the frustrations that ward councillors face with the City and more specifically, the JRA.

“We continue to receive a minuscule amount of communication from the depots, despite there being a regional operations manager and various other support staff. We continue to be overburdened by requests for repairs of potholes, reinstatements, road marking, stormwater maintenance and the like,” said Potter in the committee meeting.

The Johannesburg Roads Agency confirmed the asphalt shortage in December last year, noting that the asphalt plant has not been able to produce asphalt thus far. The entity added that it was attending to the issue and ‘everything will be back to normal in due course’.

The Sandton Chronicle contacted the roads agency, as well as the JRA’s head of infrastructure Siyabonga Genu, for a recent update with regard to the delays in response time and the non-operational asphalt plant but a response was not provided at the time of publication.

Potter, however, continues to encourage residents and ward councillors alike to hold the entity to account and continue reporting all City-related issues and posting images on social media.

“Councillors will continue to hold the City to account at various platforms that they have access to – oversight committees, ward councillor forums, written and oral questions to the political executive, City Council meetings,” he said.

Residents can log queries with the JRA by emailing hotline@jra.org.za or tweeting @myjra

Related articles:

https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/281254/jras-war-on-potholes-continues-in-region-e/

https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/281096/jra-provides-update-on-the-asphalt-plant-development/