Potholes shouldn’t claim lives

5 November 2020

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is calling on the MEC of Roads and Public Works, FufeMakatong, to urgently convene with municipalities across the Northern Cape to better address the poor state of municipal and provincial roads.

This comes after an 18-year old matriculant from Roodepan, Kimberley, was involved in a fatal motor vehicle accident caused by a pothole, over the weekend. It is unacceptable that Kimberley, which is the capital city of the Northern Cape, has some of the very worst roads in the province and the country.

Motor vehicle accidents caused by potholes are nothing new to the Northern Cape, frequently costing residents new shocks and CV joints. It is however one thing for the state of the Northern Cape’s roads to be so bad that they break wheel rims and damage tyres, but it is another thing when they start claiming lives.

Earlier this year, the Department of Roads and Public Works reported that they were facing pothole claims to the value of more than R54 million due to poor road maintenance. They said some of the pothole-related accidents had taken place outside of the department’s jurisdiction, in municipalities.

Government has undeniably neglected our roads. It is increasingly unacceptable that this department, alongside municipalities, fails to attend to the road network, on which we depend for access to work, health care and school.

The DA will therefore write to MEC Makatong, asking that she comes up with a province-wide plan to tackle the worst roads first. In this regard, Makatong needs to foster collaboration with municipalities whereby organs of state can implement an equipment and resource sharing programme, to collectively ensure that our roads are made safer as a matter of urgency.

We should not have pothole repair machines sitting idly at certain municipalities and fleet garages, whilst there are potholes to be repaired. The province also further needs to harness the best skills and share knowledge with other institutions, to ensure that road patchwork is of a quality standard, that doesn’t wash away after the first rains.

We hope that Makatong takes this matter seriously. We cannot continue on this trend, else we might as well do away with tar roads and just make use of gravel roads, which at this stage will probably prove safer than many of the craterous roads that residents have to navigate on a daily basis.

Issued by Harold McGluwa,DA Northern Cape Provincial Chairperson & Chief Whip of the Provincial Caucus, 5 November 2020