By Rianté Naidoo

Local governments face a myriad of challenges with limited resources, says Mpho Kau, the head of infrastructure at the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA).

Addressing delegates from around Africa at the African Road and Bridge Forum 2017 this week, Kau discussed challenges presented at a municipal level and said that limited funding is one of the agency’s main constraints.

Kau acknowledged that road infrastructure maintenance has been neglected in places across the City of Johannesburg, however added that the JRA is focussing on developing new infrastructure through a five year strategy.

He said urban sprawl was one of the main causes exerting pressure on the city’s “already overloaded infrastructure”.

Road restoration behind schedule

Kau said there is currently a five year lapse in road preservation. He added that there was a sharp deterioration in the quality of road surfaces between 2008 and 2013. Unfortunately, a slump in funding levels coincided with this.

Over this period, Kau said the JRA experienced a loss of skilled staff and as a result, this affected the performance and efficiency levels of the agency.

JRA’s five year strategy

However, the JRA recently developed a five year strategy to counter this and start dealing with the backlog of maintenance and infrastructure needs across the city. Kau said this strategy was aligned with the City of Johannesburg’s Growth and Development Strategy, as well as the Integrated Development Plan.

This plan includes six strategic interventions:

1. Getting adequately resourced and functioning assets (e.g. asphalt plant, road resurfacing depot etc.).
2. A 10 year road network development plan which would see the rollout of a major capital investment programme.
3. An efficient traffic signal maintenance regime.
4. Improved stormwater management.
5. Improved partnerships with the public and private sectors, NGOs etc.
6. Securing alternative funding to ensure the JRA has adequate funds year round.

Kau said that, at any given time, the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) has access to around R30 billion in funding for road infrastructure maintenance however, according to Sanral, the agency receives an approximate allocation of R12 billion per annum for the non-toll portfolio

The JRA on the other hand only has access to R15 000 per month. “For a city like Johannesburg, that money is not helping anyone,” he said.

The total road network in Johannesburg spans across 15,000km, with more than 800 bridge structures.

While making significant maintenance and infrastructure headway on Johannesburg’s roads remains a monumental task, Kau says the JRA is committed to improving road conditions by fixing the number of potholes, by having engineers “going back to the basics”, and by improving the “overall user experience” of the city’s roads.

He said the JRA would also focus on extending the lifespan of road infrastructure, reducing maintenance costs, increasing the coverage of the city’s road infrastructure network and will work on balancing the economic, social and public transport infrastructure.