In an interview with Radio 702’s John Robbie this morning, Transport MMC for Johannesburg, Rehana Moosajee, stated that the City of Johannesburg and the Johannesburg Road Agency (JRA) are in favour of public private partnerships to ensure maintenance and service delivery, but these partnerships must be mutually beneficial and follow correct processes.

This comes hot on the heels of a decision by direct insurer Dial Direct to terminate its Pothole Brigade project that saw an estimated 50 000 potholes fixed over the past 18 months at no cost to the municipality or the road user. In the wake of the e-tolling debacle, it would seem that a system that required no unpopular ‘user pays’ principle would be welcomed by local government with open arms.

As far back as November 2011, the JRA told Dial Direct to stop all pothole repair work on roads under their jurisdiction. This was based on an alleged failure to comply with the stipulations in the Municipal Financial management Act, and a need for the project to be formalised through a tender process – this despite the fact that the service was free. After waiting for five months to hear back from the JRA, Dial Direct decided to pull the plug, as it felt its brand was suffering from an inability to deliver on its promise for the project. Unaware of the ban, motorists had been continuing to report on potholes to the company, expecting them to be fixed.

Mosaajee admitted that there must be a return on investment for a private company that repairs potholes at its own expense, and that this takes the form of positive publicity. She said she only has a problem with this when that positive publicity for the company goes hand in hand with negative publicity for the City of Johannesburg, ie when the implication is that a private company must step in to make up for the incompetence of the City in order to do the job it should be doing itself. She denied that this was a win-win situation, and said the whole PR issue of would have to be better handled in future.

Moosajee affirmed that her first priority was to ensure the efficient maintenance of roads by the JRA itself, and to improve levels of service.

In the meantime road users in the City of Johannesburg no longer have a quick and efficient solution to the pothole problem, nor do they have clarity as to who will be awarded the public/private tender or even when the tender process will begin.