Of the 1 592 bridges in the City of Johannesburg, only 8% are considered to be in good condition, Transport MMC Kenny Kunene said.
“In fact, some of our engineers don't drive over certain bridges,” he added during a media briefing on June 29.
He said there was not enough money in the fiscus to maintain and repair all the bridges that need to be repaired and warned that, if the bridges were left to collapse, the cost would be far greater.
“I believe that if we rehabilitate bridges before they collapse, we will spend less. But we have seen in government in other parts where people allow collapses to happen. When things collapse, hundreds of millions have to be spent, and that’s where they steal,” he warned.
Kunene implied that rehabilitating a bridge before it collapsed would cost about 1% of the cost of repairing it after a collapse.
“Maintenance is very important and it's lacking,” he said.
Kunene was speaking at the relaunch of the Pothole Patrol public-private partnership, whereby car rental company Avis has now joined insurance company Discovery Insure, the Johannesburg Roads Agency and the City of Joburg to deliver pothole detection and repair services across the city.
“I believe we should not be the type of government where we wait for disasters to happen before things can be made right,” he said.