South Africa’s road maintenance funding increased from R6.5 billion to R17.2 billion but road quality got much worse

Transport Minister Barbara Creecy revealed that South Africa’s road maintenance and infrastructure funding increased from R6.5 billion in 2012 to R17.2 billion in 2026.

However, despite this 167% increase in funding for maintenance of road infrastructure, the quality of South Africa’s roads deteriorated significantly.

Creecy shared the maintenance of road infrastructure in response to the Parliamentary question from National Assembly member Glynnis Breytenbach.

Breytenbach asked the Minister for a breakdown of the annual budget allocated towards road maintenance and infrastructure in each province since 1994.

Creecy responded, saying that she could only provide funding for the maintenance of road infrastructure to all provinces since 2011.

This was because the Provincial Road Maintenance Grant (PRMG), which provided this information, was established only in 2011.

“Any other historical budget data, such as Provincial Equitable Share Allocation, should be obtained from the Provincial Treasuries or Provincial Road Authorities,” she said.

In the 2012 financial year, the funding for road maintenance and infrastructure across all South African provinces was R6.5 billion.

It increased to R11.9 billion in the 2022 financial year, which was an 85% increase in funding over a decade.

Over the next four years, road maintenance and infrastructure increased by 45% to R17.2 billion.

The chart below shows the increase in South Africa’s road funding in all provinces between 2012 and 2026.

South Africa’s road quality has deteriorated significantly since 2011

Despite the R10.8 billion increase in road maintenance and infrastructure funding, the quality of South African roads deteriorated significantly.

The best measure of the quality of the country’s roads comes from the Infrastructure Report Cards (IRC).

The Infrastructure Report Cards are published every five years by the South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE).

These reports include technical assessments from the South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL) and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). 

The data from the SAICE reports indicate that over the past 15 years, the condition of South African roads has deteriorated.

This deterioration is driven by severe declines in South Africa’s provincial and municipal secondary road networks.

One reason is that logistics failures on Transnet’s rail network forced heavy freight onto secondary road infrastructure.

Heavy axles have accelerated structural rutting and failure on roads never engineered for such payloads.

Another, more concerning reason is that deferred maintenance has caused minor surface cracks to turn into structural road failures.

There are now millions of potholes on South African roads because provincial and local authorities failed to repair them as required.

The estimated road infrastructure maintenance backlog grew from R100 billion in 2010 to between R200 billion and R400 billion across municipal and provincial networks.

Network Category	2011	2017	2022	Trend
Funding	R6.5 billion	R10.8 billion	R11.9 billion	Big increase
National Roads	B+	B+	B+	Stable & Good
Metro Paved Roads	C-	C-	D	Deteriorating
Municipal Paved Roads	D	D-	E	Severe Decline
Provincial Paved Roads	C-	D+	D	Deteriorating
Gravel Roads	E	E	E	Consistently Poor