Question NW617 to the Minister of Transport

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10 April 2024 - NW617

Profile picture: Sithole, Mr KP

Sithole, Mr KP to ask the Minister of Transport

(1)In light of the launch of the Vala Zonke War Room in 2023, wherein the citizens were once again encouraged to use the Pothole Reporting App, what (a) has been the effectiveness of the specified App since its launch and (b) total number of potholes were (i) reported and (ii) repaired as a result of the initiative; (2) in light of the varied challenges facing road maintenance across the three spheres of government, what (a) specific training and (b) skills development initiatives are (i) planned and (ii) underway to build capacity within the relevant road authorities and maintenance depots; (3) Since the Vala Zonke War Room aims to centralise and expedite the response to pothole issues, what steps has she taken to ensure that the centralisation does not lead to bureaucratic delays and/or a disconnection from localised road maintenance needs and priorities?

Reply:

1. (a) The Vala Zonke Public Pothole Reporting APP was launched on 8 August 22, and to date we have had 21 341 downloads of the APP.

(b) (i) The Public has reported 46 693 potholes to date using the public APP

(b) (ii) Of the Public reported potholes a total of 7842 has been reported as closed to Vala Zonke War Room. This number excludes the blacktop patching numbers currently received from authorities. Indications are that this number is higher as not all Authorities are reporting back to the Vala Zonke War Room on actual repaired potholes or in the correct format to reconcile public potholes repaired. The War Room is trying to establish a mechanism to reconcile blacktop patching with potholes repaired.

2. (a) Various best practices national guidelines has been developed regarding road asset management and published under the auspices of the committee of transport Officials (COTO) as Technical Recommendations or Methods to be utlised by all spheres of Government.

b) (i) Various training initiatives using the above national guidelines are undertaken by the various spheres of Government and Service providers as and when new employees or sub-contractors are onboarded.

(b) (ii) SANRAL is in a process of entering in an MOU with the CETA. In terms of this MOU the CETA will provide the requisite accredited training to the supervisors and labour from the roads authorities engaged in the repair of potholes. A second aspect is the training of SMME’s and their teams in accredited training in the repair of potholes and in the management, operation of these small construction entities.

The CETA has developed accredited training courses specifically for the repair of potholes.

3. The role of the Vala Zonke War Room is not to actually perform the pothole repairs, these repairs are still performed by the responsible Road Authority for the section of road in their respective road networks as per provisions of the Constitution. The Vala Zonke War Room provides central oversight, reporting and monitoring on repair of potholes by the responsible road authority, establish reasons into the delay in repairing potholes by responsible road authorities and identify common reasons in delays that needs to be escalated to be unblocked at appropriate Authorithy level. The War Room also provides training on the use of the APP’s to the respective Road authority officials and the use of the central electronic database – Integrated Transportation Information System (ITIS).

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