Helen Zille’s dubious pothole claims

The DA’s mayoral candidate in Johannesburg, Helen Zille, claimed that it costs the City of Johannesburg R50,000 to fix a pothole.

However, the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) previously stated that they pay around R371 per pothole.

Zille shared this information during a Biznews interview, where she claimed that the City of Johannesburg spends R50,000 to fix a pothole, compared to the Pothole Patrol’s R5,000.

She argued that Johannesburg was bankrupt partly because it paid too much for many things, including repairing potholes.

“The Pothole Patrol fills a pothole for R5,000 with everything taken into account, including wages, fuel, and vehicles,” she said.

“Johannesburg spends about R50,000 per pothole. Just multiply that across an entire system, and you will see what we are talking about.”

There is a problem with her claim. There is no data showing that the City of Johannesburg spends R50,000 to fix a pothole.

Newsday asked Zille for the source of her claim that it costs the City of Johannesburg R50,000 to fix a pothole, but she did not respond.

The only reference to this high cost came from Business Leadership South Africa (BLSA) CEO Busi Mavuso in a Daily Maverick interview.

Mavuso stated that while a privately funded pothole repair costs about R7,500, the City of Johannesburg spends R65,000 per pothole.

However, this claim was retracted after the Johannesburg Roads Agency provided accurate figures on the city’s pothole repair costs.

The Johannesburg Roads Agency told Inside Metros that it repaired 97,938 potholes across the city during the 2025/26 financial year.

The cost to repair these potholes was R36 million, which equates to an average cost of R371.43 per pothole.

The Daily Maverick stated that its initial article “reflected incorrect costs of fixing potholes by both the private and public sectors”. “We apologise for the errors.”