South Africa Launches Operation Vala Zonke to Tackle Potholes
In order to help the government quickly fix potholes, the Transport Minister, Fikile Mbalula, has urged the public to report them via a recently released app for municipal and provincial roads. The Minister announced the commencement of Operation Vala Zonke, a comprehensive campaign to eliminate potholes across all areas of government. The app is available for download on both the Google Playstore and the Apple App store.
The software will integrate with the South African National Roads Agency SOC Ltd (SANRAL) pothole management app and enable users to report problems, upload images of potholes, and offer real-time road location on an interactive map that will display the owners of the various roads. The app also offers status updates on reported difficulties.
According to the government, it has committed to contacting private businesses, local governments, and other interested parties to ask for their assistance in helping the government maintain and upgrade the nation’s road system.
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
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— FIKILE MBALULA | MR FIX (@MbalulaFikile) August 8, 2022
Mbalula noted that the ministry will inject strong skills development methodology to the intervention through cooperation with educational institutions and the sector education and training authorities. He noted that this involvement at all levels of government must be built on a skills revolution.
“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 said.
Sanral, the organization in charge of carrying out this program ‘Operation Vala Zonke’, promised to rigorously monitor and evaluate the results of the interventions over the following six months.
With a monitoring and evaluation capability now in place, Sanral will be able to produce audit reports as a result, which will serve as the foundation for validating the work completed and the turnaround time for fixing potholes.
“Sanral has a policy of fixing any reported potholes within 48 hours. While national roads are overwhelmingly in a pristine condition, we recognize that provincial and municipal roads require a decisive strategy and active support to augment capacity gaps.
“Potholes have remained a problem and have posed a danger to road users throughout the country. Potholes are particularly dangerous at night or in rainy weather,” Mbalula said.