Ekurhuleni’s R65 billion road infrastructure crisis met with meagre R449 million budget

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17-04-2025
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DA Gauteng
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Motorists and passengers across the City of Ekurhuleni (CoE) face daily dangers when travelling along the city roads, having to dodge potholes and navigate the disintegrating roads. Despite these challenges, the City has only allocated R449 million to fix roads for the entire metro in the 2024/25 budget. While it will cost R65 Billion to repair the worst 1619km of roads across Ekurhuleni.

This represents 7% of what is needed to repair the worst roads.

This information was revealed in a reply to the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) written questions tabled to the MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Jacob Mamabolo, in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature (GPL).

The last assessment of the condition of all roads in the CoE was conducted in 2019, referred to as the “Pavement Management System”. According to the reply, 8,245.53km of roads were assessed for their structural condition and were categorised as follows:

• Very Good 19.54%

• Good 12.97%

• Fair 37.27%

• Poor 9.98%

• Very Poor 20.06%

Since the 2019 assessment, the conditions of the City’s roads have deteriorated considerably, and the cost of repairs would have ballooned.

With the current budget set aside for road maintenance, the City cannot even keep up with repairing potholes and roads.

A DA-led Gauteng Provincial government would immediately assess the maintenance needs of all roads in the province and work with municipalities to ensure that they have sufficient money allocated for maintenance.