'Mr Fix' vows to fill Eastern Cape potholes, at a price

Transport minister Fikile “Mr Fix” Mbabula wants to take over the fixing of potholes — but his plan for the province has a R600m price tag.

That’s the amount the province would lose from conditional grants.

Mbalula wants to cut the approximately R1.5bn provincial roads maintenance grant his department gives to the province by 40%, a move both Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane and the provincial department of transport believe would be a setback.

But Mbalula said the programme was aimed at all the provinces. He intends to fix potholes around the country in six months.

Speaking to DispatchLIVE on Tuesday, Mbalula said he wanted provinces to return funds already allocated for this year to his department and run with the pothole project.

But the provinces have resisted, saying they had already allocated the money.

“So in the next financial term, before we allocate, we will be able to deal with that,” Mbalula said.

“The provinces won’t agree so we will implement reprioritisation at the present moment for this financial year.

“We will give ourselves six months. Let’s not use the words eradicate because potholes will never be eradicated.

“What we will be doing is a project that must be replicated. Full engineering capacity, upskilling of the workforce particularly youth and women, in terms of closing potholes.”

Mbalula said his department had already agreed on the matter with the National Treasury, and the programme would be run by the South African National Roads Agency Ltd (Sanral).

“We will have a memorandum of understanding with different municipalities but we are not taking over entirely in terms of municipalities.

“We will partner with municipalities that don’t have revenue to fix potholes, to work with them.

“But the well-off municipalities must do the job of closing the potholes; they must not wait for me, that is how we will package it.”

But on Monday, Mabuyane, while addressing the ANC provincial general council, expressed concern about Mbalula’s latest move, saying it meant more budget cuts for the province.

“I know national is considering taking over the eradication of potholes because we as provinces and municipalities appear to be quite unable to deal with the issue.

“I can tell you if that is done, 40% of the current conditional grants we are getting on roads will be taken away from this province.

“That would mean money to the province is forever shrinking.”

Mabuyane had asked comrades to be vocal at this weekend’s ANC national policy conference about the need for a review of the equitable share formula in determining the division of revenue for provinces.

Mabuyane said they had agreed that the infrastructure backlog, which was a legacy from the colonial and apartheid past, needed to be taken into account in allocating funds to the province.

Transport spokesperson Unathi Binqose said though they welcomed an intervention such as Mbalula’s, it would put the provincial department on the back foot.

Among the department’s worries was the negative effect budget cuts would have on rural communities who relied mainly on gravel roads. 

“There are these talks. But it’s a 40% stake of our budget. It’s nothing concrete at this stage.

“But as much as we are happy about their intervention, it would put us on the back foot if it were to happen.

“We are still negotiating with them to find a better solution to the problem.”

Binqose said the province was negotiating with Sanral over the matter.

“They understand our standpoint that if this were to happen it would put us at a disadvantage.

“The work they do will be focused mainly in urban areas if they are talking about potholes.

“But we have a responsibility as well to rural areas because some of our budget goes towards [gravel roads]. We can’t neglect the rural communities.”

DispatchLIVE