Bad roads 'costing SA billions'
2010-03-16 14:37
Cape Town - Poor road maintenance caused 1 694 deaths and cost around R10bn a year between 2004 and 2008, a Road Traffic Management Corporation official told parliamentarians on Tuesday.
Hlengani Moyana, an RTMC research manager, told the portfolio committee on transport the findings of the research, conducted between 2004 and 2008, indicated an urgent need for funds "for maintenance issues".
"Fatal crashes accounted for 1 694 casualties on average and the cost thereof was over R1.3bn," he said.
"Overall, on average over the five years, just road maintenance related crashes accounted for almost R10bn per annum.
Lack of funds
"When we looked at the problem that resulted from poor maintenance, we discovered there is a need to have funds for maintenance issues."
He said provinces had indicated they felt road maintenance was "something they are not expected to do".
"Those that do assessments sometimes put the reports away instead of implementing the recommendations," Moyana said.
"When we wanted to know why, they attributed lack of action to lack of funds. If we can think of ways to raise funds to address this infrastructure problem we can go a long way to solving the problem."
Potholes
Chief executive of the SA National Roads Agency, Nazir Alli, told the committee he believed potholes were caused by "poor management systems", not a lack of funds.
"I am of the opinion that potholes are a manifestation of poor management systems in the different road authorities. It is not a lack of money. It is an issue on how effective are we in our expenditure."
- SAPA