The rainy season in most of South Africa has once again exposed the dire state of municipal road networks across the country. From metros to small towns, potholes are multiplying and growing rapidly, disrupting mobility, damaging vehicles, increasing accident risks and fuelling public frustration.
Yet potholes themselves are not the real problem, says The Institute of Municipal Engineering of Southern Africa (IMESA). They are the most visible symptom of road maintenance delays and underinvestment. “The greatest challenge is not filling potholes, but convincing decision makers that the sound operation and maintenance of existing assets should be prioritised over investment in new infrastructure.”
The South African road network of over 750,000 km is the tenth longest in the world. Municipalities manage over 256,000 km of this network, and an estimated 131,000 km is unproclaimed. The road replacement cost is estimated at R2 trillion. Given the extent of the network to be managed, it is critical for municipalities to prioritise road maintenance. IMESA warns that neglect will result in the ongoing deterioration of assets and a huge knock to the economy that will be compounded by the inflated costs of reconstruction over time.
Citing the findings of an important research paper that was shared with the more than 700 engineers and municipal officials who attended the 2025 IMESA Conference, the institute states that delaying road maintenance is a false economy. The longer such maintenance is left undone, the higher the eventual cost to restore the road to an acceptable condition. The paper’s authors, Ashiel Rampersad, Melusi Nkosi, Obey Manganyi and Jabulani Vincent Mashinini from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s (CSIR’s) Smart Mobility cluster, set out to understand the readiness of municipalities to manage an ageing local road network, given their internal and external challenges.
Some of their findings were concerning, but IMESA notes that recognising the issues and planning the way forward is the first step towards improving service delivery. The authors found that 59% of municipalities are unaware of their road network conditions, primarily due to missing assessment systems. A limited number of municipalities have appropriate systems and policies in place to manage their road network, and the consequences of the widespread underfunding of road condition maintenance are seldom assessed by road authorities.
The writers reviewed 41 municipal Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) to understand how their road assets are prioritised. They noted that local governments should be able to leverage their existing knowledge, skills and resources to meet their goals effectively. Achieving this requires a stronger institutional capacity to manage operations and service delivery. However, most municipalities currently lack the capability to consistently produce reliable and transparent performance reports, highlighting significant institutional weaknesses. Less than half of municipalities have road asset management, infrastructure or transport plans.
Municipalities, on average, spend more on newly constructed roads as opposed to maintenance of existing roads, Smith et al. found. They noted that this trend highlights the widespread underinvestment in infrastructure prioritisation.
A concept framework for road infrastructure management developed by the writers was shared with IMESA Conference attendees. As potholes continue to rile road users and test municipalities around the country, IMESA urges municipal engineers to use this powerful tool at their disposal. “The shortage of skills is also recognised as a major threat to local roads infrastructure management, so the education, knowledge sharing and professional development offered by IMESA is vital. Since 1961, the institute has been committed to the pursuit of excellence in all facets of infrastructure, offering a platform for the exchange of ideas and viewpoints on all aspects of municipal engineering with the aim of expanding the knowledge and best practices in all local government municipalities. All municipal engineers are invited to be part of this community of pioneers, professionals and enthusiasts united by a singular purpose: to reshape the landscape of infrastructure engineering.”
Municipalities and residents are also urged to reframe performance criteria for road maintenance. “Rather than counting the number of potholes fixed, we should instead consider how many kilometres are under preventative maintenance programmes. Preventative and proactive maintenance is more beneficial to the municipality and ultimately to ratepayers and their purses than reactive repairs like pothole fixing.”
IMESA cautions citizens, communities and businesses who might be tempted to fix potholes themselves that this carries serious legal, safety and infrastructure risks. Public roads are municipal assets. Any unauthorised work on them constitutes interference with public infrastructure and exposes individuals or community groups to legal liability. If an accident occurs as a result of an informal repair, the person or group that carried out the work may be held personally liable, even if the intention was to improve safety. In addition, unauthorised repairs can void municipal insurance cover and complicate claims against the municipality.
Potholes are rarely surface-only defects. In many cases, failure extends into the base or sub-base layers due to water ingress and poor drainage. Without proper assessment and preparation, informal repairs often trap moisture beneath the surface, use the incorrect materials, lack proper compaction and fail within days or weeks, IMESA says.
The right ways for communities to help include reporting potholes through official channels and working through City Improvement Districts (CIDs) or recognised community structures that have entered into Memorandums of Agreement (MoAs) with municipalities. These models protect public safety, preserve legal clarity and ensure that repairs contribute to long-term asset health.
“If municipalities, engineers and communities can align around a shared goal of preserving road assets rather than merely reacting to failures, South Africa can move from a cycle of pothole crises to a culture of proactive infrastructure management,” IMESA concludes.
