Cost of fixing a pothole in South Africa

GAUTENG – According to media reports, the former South African Road Federation chairperson Mutshutshu Nxumalo said it costs the Government or a Municipality between R700 and R1500 per square meter to fix a pothole. He furthermore claimed that South Africa has more than 25 million potholes and over the past seven years, the number of potholes has increased by about 10 million.

“Strong procurement strategies are needed to address the backlog in fixing the potholes. Unfortunately, what we also do because we have not been maintaining our infrastructure very well, we have neglected the infrastructure for too long. The problems have become huge, and that’s why we have the programmes that government is trying to put forward to address the backlog.”

“It also needs a strong procurement strategy to solutions that will work so you can be able to track what you have done and if there are any warranty issues on the work that contractors have done, so you can follow them to come and fix again where things have not gone well. Which is why we need to comply with the general reporting and accounting to see where our money went.” Mutshutshu Nxumalo said.