As the honourable member may be aware, most of the South African road network has reached their twenty (20) years design life with the maintenance backlog estimated to be R197 billion. It is also important to note that insufficient budget for roads at both provincial and municipal levels continue to hinder the sector hence most of these roads are riddled with potholes.
Following Cabinet retreat of 31 May to 1 June 2022, whereby SANRAL was appointed as the implementing agent for the programme to support the Roads authorities with skills capacity and use of the maintenance technologies already available at SANRAL. All provinces developed and presented their respective plans on the six months rollout till end of 2022/23 financial year.
The programme “Operation Vala Zonke” rollout was then launched on 08 August 2022 in Gauteng with all other eight (8) provinces simultaneously launching their rollout programmes.
The rollout plan has both the short and long-term interventions that is presented to the National Treasury for funding support which includes amongst others.
The Department is in the process of establishing the “Operation Vala Zonke War Room” whereby all matters relating to pothole information will be centrally coordinated.
Following my meeting with His excellency President Cyril Ramaphosa in May 2023, I will be meeting with all the nine Premiers with effect from the 5th of June 2023 to address amongst others, challenges facing the province’s financial, technological and human resource capacity and also agree on how the rollout can be strengthened.