The City of Johannesburg (CoJ) and the Johannesburg Road Agency (JRA) have declared a war on potholes in the city.

They have already made progress in a 60-day action campaign – the first step in its drive to accelerate service delivery and tackle road infrastructure issues.

The project is aimed at enhancing road infrastructure around the City, especially following the recent heavy rains in Joburg, which has caused damage to some of the roads.

JRA acting COO Siyabonga Genu indicated that following the festive period, there was a backlog of about 4 000 potholes which needed to be fixed.  The campaign began on January 28 with March 28 being the estimated completion date.

The JRA has committed to fix all these potholes before the deadline and, to date, 3 000 have already been fixed.

Genu noted that there were many more potholes outside of this backlog and that more would develop perpetually owing to the condition of the city’s road infrastructure.

To tackle these potholes, the JRA will work together with small, medium-sized and microenterprises; and has also made additional teams available to ensure all potholes that are reported are dealt with.

CoJ executive mayor Geoff Makhubo urged citizens to report all potholes to ensure they are fixed.