R17 billion spent on South Africa’s roads, only for them to get worse

South Africa’s road maintenance and infrastructure funding has grown from R6.5 billion in 2011/12 to R17.2 billion in 2025/2026, but provincial roads are getting worse.

This was revealed by Transport Minister Barbara Creecy in response to questions by National Assembly member Glynnis Breytenbach.

Breytenbach sought a breakdown of the annual budget allocated for road maintenance and infrastructure in each province starting in 1994. 

In her response, the minister explained that the Department of Transport has provided supplementary funding for the maintenance of road infrastructure in all provinces since 2011.

As a result, Minister Creecy could provide data on road maintenance funding across all provinces starting from that year. 

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

Older budget data, including the Provincial Equitable Share Allocation, can only be obtained from Provincial Treasuries or Provincial Road Authorities.

Looking at the data provided by the minister, South Africa budgeted R6.5 billion for road maintenance and infrastructure across all provinces in the 2011/12 financial year.

Within ten years – in the 2021/22 financial year – that budget had nearly doubled to R11.9 billion, with KwaZulu-Natal consistently receiving close to or more than R2 billion annually.

By 2022/23, the budget surpassed R12 billion, with two provinces – KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape – demanding more than R5 billion between them, including over R3 billion for the former alone.

In the 2025/26 financial year, the Provincial Road Maintenance Grant budget reached R17.2 billion – an increase of 167% in 15 years – and every province allocated more than R1.5 billion each.

Despite increased funding, the quality of South African roads has significantly deteriorated since 2011, according to the South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE) Infrastructure Report Cards (IRC).

These reports, which are published every five years, include technical assessments from the South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL) and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). 

Taxpayers keep paying for worsening roads

According to the data in the SAICE reports, the condition of South African roads has deteriorated over the past 15 years, primarily driven by severe declines in South Africa’s provincial and municipal secondary road networks.

The institution’s last report graded South Africa’s paved provincial roads as a “D”, which considers them at risk of failure, while municipal paved roads received a D-minus grading.

Unpaved provincial and municipal roads, which make up 80% of the road network, were classified as “E”, or “unfit for purpose”.

SAICE’s report highlighted that the primary issue is that provincial and local authorities are reactive rather than proactive when managing their respective road networks.

Instead of conducting regular scheduled maintenance to prevent deterioration, authorities tend to wait for roads to fail before attempting to repair them.

This is despite the massive increase in PRMG allocations, which in Gauteng grew from R566.9 million in 2011/2012 to R1.27 billion in 2025/2026.

Despite the province’s economic size and importance, it received the lowest allocation of road maintenance grants of any province in South Africa – possibly due to its smaller geographic size.

KwaZulu-Natal continues to be the best-funded province when it comes to PRMG road allowance, becoming the first province to cross the R2 billion threshold in 2016.

The province’s allocation has grown from R1.24 billion in 2011/2012 to R3.15 billion in 2025/2026.

The Western Cape, which has had its road maintenance budget improve from R411.1 million in 2011/12 to R2.18 billion in 2025/26, is also the only province where paved roads are maintained in a satisfactory condition.

The province uses an up-to-date Pavement Management System to scientifically identify and prioritise roads before they reach a critical structural “tipping point”.

Alongside the Western Cape, Mpumalanga also operates a Pavement Management System to prioritise road spending.