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ActionSA’s Worst Roads Tour began on Monday in the political vacuum which is the silence of parties on this vital issue that limits how communities and towns are connected, especially in rural provinces. 

Over the course of these days, concluding yesterday, ActionSA visited provincial and municipal roads in communities across the North West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga. With further visits planned for other provinces, we will now begin the work of developing a comprehensive blueprint to fix South Africa’s road network which will be presented to South Africans before the elections.

The visits, which spanned thousands of kilometres, revealed the shortcomings in South Africa’s municipal and provincial road network. These challenges centred around the following:

A failure to tar gravel roads in sufficient road kilometres over the past 30 years of ANC rule, for example the North West has only 30% of its road network tarred; 

Neglect of the repairs and maintenance of the road network to the point of road degradation down to the base layer level of roads necessitated complete reconstruction;

Supply chain appointments of inexperienced or incapable service providers producing delays, budget overspends and (or) inferior delivery standards; 

Lack of project management skills and (or) experience in roads departments to manage roads projects to completion to acceptable standards, budgets and deadlines; 

The impact of heavy vehicle usage of provincial and municipal road networks arising from the collapse of South Africa’s commercial railway networks. 

Fragmented government road infrastructure planning across local, provincial and national tiers of government.

Dysfunctional local and provincial government that require clear and decisive leadership and the placement of such governments under the administration of capable and professional civil servants.

The consequence of these failures, while bad in urban centres, is exponentially worse in peri-urban and rural provinces and has generated a roads backlog that grows continues to grow exponentially beyond the funds budgeted by municipal and provincial governments.

The effect of our road network decline is the disconnection of communities that are interdependent upon one another and the significant damage to vehicles that travel these roads. The costs of these roads are borne on the households of those with private vehicles, the cost of public transport for commuters and the cost of goods and services passed onto all residents in these communities. The frequent crosses on the sides of these roads bear testament to the cost of human life arising from the road network.

Much can be done to improve the condition index of the provincial and municipal road network and, at the heart of the ActionSA blueprint, will be the methods implemented by Herman Mashaba to improve the road network during his tenure as Mayor of Johannesburg. Through reprioritising the funds wasted on the perks and luxuries of government over R2 billion was reprioritised to infrastructure in 2017, resulting in 900km of roads being resurfaced and reconstructed. 

ActionSA will focus on the development of a blueprint to fix South Africa’s broken road network for presentation to South Africans prior to these all-important elections. It is evident from the feedback received from the Worst Roads Tour that this issue is of great importance to many South Africans and far greater than has been reflected in the campaigns of other parties. 

ActionSA plans to inspire South Africans with the knowledge that these 2024 elections will generate the kind of change, nationally and in the provinces, that will see their road networks being improved through a coordinated and professional programme of renewal. 

Issued by ActionSA Team FixSA Member for Infrastructure Michael Beaumont