Potholes Surge in SA: Over R15 million paid to motorists due to pothole damages
The South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) has paid more than R15 million to motorists after their vehicles were damaged by the pothole-riddled national roads over the past two years, highlighting the dire state of roads in the country.
Minister of Transport, Barbara Creecy disclosed this while responding to a Parliamentary question asked by Rise Mzansi MP, Makashule Gana.
Gana wanted to know the total number of claims filed against her department in the past three financial years, including the total monetary value of the specialised claims and total amount that has been paid to motorists who suffered the damages.
In response to the question, Creecy said over R15 million was paid by Sanral for a total of 116 claims for pothole damage on the country’s national roads.
Creecy said Sanral is responsible for claims related to potholes on the national roads, while provinces and municipalities are directly responsible for claims related to potholes on national roads.
She said in the 2022 and 2023 financial year, the roads agency received 53 claims and paid over R1 million to claimants, while in 2023 and 2024 financial year, 36 claims were received and over R800,000 was paid to motorists.
In the 2024 and 2025 financial year, Creecy, said they received a total of 27 claims and paid more than R13 million to claimants.
She said the claims were not lodged directly against the Department of Transport, however, they were against Sanral.
Meanwhile, Gana expressed that they were concerned that despite the number of claims reducing in number over a stated period, the amount paid out has increased sharply.
“For example, in 2022/23 there were 53 claims paid out to the value of about R1.2 million, while in 2024/25, thus far, with just over half the number (27) of claims, almost 14 million has been paid out.
“The above figures only relate to claims made on the country’s national routes maintained and managed by Sanral, and therefore do not include claims made to provinces and municipalities,” he said.
Gana said potholes on the country’s national roads can, in part, be directly linked to the collapse of the rail network and an increased number of trucks on the roads used to move goods and services to and from the country’s ports.
“Moreover, potholes pose a danger to commuters and increase the cost of doing business.”
He said at another available opportunity, he will ask Creecy to brief the Portfolio Committee on the work that has been done to deal with potholes, “and, other road damage, that are the results of poor workmanship and/or the growing number of trucks using the national road networks”.
Pothole-riddled roads still remain a huge concern for the citizens of the country, almost across all the provinces, leaving residents, motorists and road users subjected to endless potholes and bad conditions on the roads.
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