Road to hell

South Africa’s roads are crumbling. They are dangerous, costly, and neglected. Despite rising fuel levies, motorists and truckers are facing worsening conditions with no relief in sight. There’s no other way to describe my sentiments on this subject: I am properly gatvol.

I was utterly terrified: it was 5am on a rainy Johannesburg morning and my car was marooned on the side of the road. I had been heading to the airport and, of course, it was pitch black; loadshedding had rendered the streetlights useless. The rain blurred everything, making potholes invisible, masking them as harmless puddles. But they weren’t. One of them practically swallowed my wheel, leaving my car undriveable.

There I was: stranded, soaked, and scared. I wasn’t just concerned about missing my flight, I was worried about something far more serious – becoming a crime statistic. Alone, in the dark, waiting for a taxi that may or may not come, I had one recurring thought: this is madness.

And it is. Infrastructure – of which roads are a critical part – is at the centre of public and economic well-being! Yet across South Africa, that vital infrastructure is in an alarming state of disrepair. South Africa’s roads, in particular, are disintegrating. They are failing every commuter, every trucker, every family making a school run, and every logistics fleet manager trying to meet delivery deadlines.

And now, with the recent fuel levy increase, we’re being forced to pay more for less.

A tax in disguise

The increase in the general fuel levy, expected to rake in R4 billion this financial year, is not a new concept. We’ve seen this movie before. As Sharmini Naidoo rightly points out in this month’s issue, the levy – once designed to maintain and upgrade roads – has quietly morphed into a convenient patch for tax shortfalls and budget deficits.

The government’s narrative is that inflationary pressure, not greed, is to blame. But the real problem is not why the levy was increased, it’s what’s being done with it… or rather, what’s not being done.

In theory, a higher fuel levy should mean better roads. In practice, we all know better. As the AA has astutely commented, this is part of a troubling pattern: one where citizens – already burdened with food inflation, loadshedding, and rising interest rates – are expected to fund an increasingly inefficient and opaque state.

Crumbling infrastructure, crumbling confidence

As Jim Ward noted in last month’s FOCUS, bad roads don’t just destroy suspensions – they dismantle economies. They force transporters to reroute, recalculate, and reprice. They delay deliveries, increase breakdowns, and raise insurance premiums. Most tragically, they contribute to avoidable accidents, injury, and death.

Truck drivers, the silent backbone of our economy, suffer the brunt of it. They spend more time on the road than anyone else, navigating decaying highways that once set the standard on the continent. Their job has become exponentially harder and more dangerous. When roads fail, drivers lose not just time and efficiency – but safety.

Let’s not forget the connection between bad roads and crime. A broken-down vehicle isn’t just a traffic obstruction; it’s a sitting duck. Criminals are opportunists and our road conditions are handing them opportunities on a silver platter.

My terrifying early-morning ordeal is one example, but it is far from unique. Ask any South African driver and you’ll hear a similar story: tyres slashed by potholes, bumpers cracked, windows smashed by thieves. We’re not driving, we’re dodging disaster on a daily basis.

The scale of the problem

According to the South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE), South Africa’s road network is approximately 750,000km in length, making it the world’s 10^th longest road network. Management of this vast system is fragmented:

• Primary intercity economic roads are mainly managed by SANRAL on behalf of the Department of Transport (DoT);
• Secondary and tertiary intercity roads and primary access roads fall under the jurisdiction of provincial departments;
• Urban and rural municipal roads are the responsibility of local authorities.

Alarmingly, most provincial and municipal roads authorities do not have up-to-date knowledge of the condition of their road systems. Many have not conducted comprehensive assessments in years – if at all. A positive step was the DoT’s 2018 programme requiring provincial authorities to implement proper pavement management systems. Unfortunately, progress was severely hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic and today only a minority of authorities maintain such systems.

Further complicating matters, there is no reliable national database of road lengths or ownership. Comparisons between information sources reveal duplication, roads with no clearly assigned owner, and other discrepancies.

This underfunding and neglect have dire consequences. SAICE notes that the secondary and tertiary road network is undergoing accelerated deterioration, with significant impacts on freight movement, efficiency, costs, and safety. The country’s extensive gravel road network is also suffering – budgets are insufficient to maintain it in even a minimally acceptable state.

The economic sinkhole

We talk about the cost of load-shedding: job losses at two-thirds of small businesses, entire industries decimated… but what about potholes? What about their hidden cost? What is the economic impact of delivery trucks taking 30% longer to complete routes, delayed ambulances, and vehicles constantly in for repair?

This isn’t just about wear and tear – it’s about wasted time, missed appointments, cancelled contracts, and disincentivised investment. Bad roads are a tax on efficiency – a toll on every kilometre driven.

As Gavin Kelly, CEO of the Road Freight Association, notes, 85% of South Africa’s goods move by road. When roads fail, logistics costs spike. Global supply chains notice; they divert, they avoid us. And once a country becomes known for being expensive and unreliable, the damage to its reputation – and revenue – is nearly impossible to reverse. We’re haemorrhaging competitiveness. Slowly and steadily, our position as a regional logistics hub is being eroded – not just by rivals, but by rot.

The human toll

It’s easy to quote billions and percentages. It’s much harder to quantify fear like the kind I felt alone on that roadside – the kind female motorists feel every day when their cars break down in unsafe areas. The kind truckers feel parking overnight on isolated stretches with no security.

The state of our roads is not just a fiscal issue, but also a humanitarian one. South Africans deserve better, and when we speak of safety, let’s be clear: we’re not just talking about vehicle safety. We’re talking about personal safety. Roads are supposed to connect us – not endanger us.

Where to from here?

Raising fuel levies is the easiest thing in the world to do when you’re sitting in an air-conditioned office with a government car and security detail. But it’s cowardly when you haven’t earned that increase with delivery, accountability, or results.

The money is there, it’s just not reaching the roads. Instead, it’s diverted to vanity programmes, inflated salaries, business class airline tickets, and inefficient departments. It’s no surprise that, as Rob Rose wrote in Currency, instead of fixing Johannesburg’s roads, our leaders are renaming them. They fiddle while the tar burns.

The question isn’t whether we can afford to fix the roads. It’s whether we can afford not to.

Time for transparency, not tolls

We need urgent answers: where is the money going? How much of the fuel levy is actually being spent on road maintenance? Why are pothole repair schedules so opaque? What independent oversight exists?

This isn’t a call for more levies, more taxes, or more broken promises. This is a call for accountability, for transparency, for leadership that prioritises potholes over populism.

And while we wait for that rare creature – a functioning plan – we’re left to navigate an increasingly dangerous, expensive, and exhausting journey.

So, to the readers of FOCUS, I’ll say this: keep your lights on, your tyres inflated, and your wits about you. I hope the truck drivers have angels sitting on their shoulders. I wish them godspeed. Because right now, in South Africa, every road is a risk.

And yet, despite it all, we keep driving. Because we have to.