In a quest to solve the challenges facing the country’s road system, South Africa has launched a mobile app named SANRAL Pothole App in which people can report potholes in their community to the transport authority. The Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula, has urged members of the public to use the recently released app to report potholes on local and provincial roads. This will allow the government to fix any damage caused on the roads more quickly.
The campaign to fix potholes started on the R57 in the Emfuleni local municipality, which is south of Johannesburg. Sanral, an agency of the Department of Transport (DoT), was in charge of the campaign.
Mbalula said on Monday in Vanderbijlpark at the launch of the app that “The app will work in conjunction with Sanral’s pothole management app and will allow the public to raise any issues, upload pictures of potholes, and provide a real-time location of the road on an interactive map that will show the owners of the different routes.
The app will also provide status updates on issues raised using a pothole ticketing system.
The information gets assigned to the relevant authority, depending on where the road is “The information then gets assigned to the relevant authority, depending on where the road is, and the maintenance depot responsible for that road attends to fixing the pothole,” Mbalula added.
You can now report potholes using the newly launched SANRAL Pothole App. Download from the Google Play store and iOS App Store.
Reporting Potholes made easy. Fixing Potholes Together #ValaZonke #KwalaKaofela
— ANC SECRETARY GENERAL | Fikile Mbalula (@MbalulaFikile) August 8, 2022
South Africa Pothole App
At the launch of the program, Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula appealed to provinces, municipalities, the private sector, and the general public to support the campaign. The campaign will also be known as “Operation Kwala Kaofela” in Sesotho, which roughly translates to “close them all.”
Sanral, the campaign’s implementing agency, will keep a careful eye on the initiatives and evaluate their results over the next six months. Validation of the work done and the time it takes to fix potholes will be possible.
Mbalula announced, “This is an important campaign that will make a huge difference in the lives of many South Africans. It will change the face of our municipal and provincial roads from pothole-riddled to an acceptable state of repair. This launch will be replicated across the country with Premiers and MECs leading provincial launches in all nine provinces,”
During an inspection of the N12 in Wolmaransstad, the North West province, earlier this year, he said “the reality of potholes hit home” for him.
He said that the maintenance problems and backlog in South Africa’s road network needed to start with taking steps to stop the roads from getting worse all over the country.
“Attending to potholes as soon as possible after they occur is the most effective way to arrest this decline,” he said.
Sanral will coordinate the work that will be done in conjunction with the provinces and municipalities to ensure that potholes are repaired as quickly as possible.
“Fixing the potholes on the country’s roads is an enormous task, which will take time, but we are confident that through the coordinated approach led by Sanral, we will be able to tackle this task and make a telling difference that our people can see and experience,” he said.
“Sanral has a policy of fixing any reported potholes within 48 hours. “While national roads are overwhelmingly in a pristine condition, we recognise that provincial and municipal roads require a decisive strategy and active support to augment capacity gaps,” the minister said.
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Fixing Potholes in SA
The government has stated that it is committed to reaching out to private businesses, communities, and other stakeholders to encourage them to do their part in supporting the government’s efforts to preserve and improve the road infrastructure.
“Through partnerships with institutions of learning and the sector education and training authorities, we will infuse a strong skills development methodology into the intervention.” A skills revolution must become a pillar of this intervention at all levels of government,” the minister said.
The Rural Road Asset Management Systems Grant is made available to district municipalities by the Department of Transport as part of its support for Road Infrastructure Planning. This support is afforded to district municipalities due in part to the provisions made in the Division of Revenue Act. The Vala Zonke program is a component of this support.
The minister mentioned that the app is available for download on both the Google Playstore and the Apple App Store while speaking at the inauguration of Operation Vala Zonke, an all-encompassing effort to eliminate potholes across all levels of government.