- Unemployed Mfanelo Msinga, 35, earns over R120 a day filling potholes on a damaged Soweto bridge road with soil and stones.
- Msinga says the road has no working street lights and rain fills the holes, causing traffic standstills and damage to cars.
Mfanelo Msinga, 35, earns over R120 a day filling potholes on a damaged bridge road in Soweto. He is unemployed and afraid to commit crime to survive, so he sweeps and collects soil from inner streets and fills his wheelbarrow with soil and stones to tip into the big holes.
The bridge is used by drivers from Orlando West, Orlando East, Pimville, Klipspruit and surrounding areas. During morning and evening rush hour, traffic comes to a standstill because of the holes in the tar.
The road started falling apart in December and got worse in early January. Persistent rain has damaged several cars. Msinga said: “The water fills the holes and the busy bridge road does not have functioning street lights.”
The conditions have also led to a rise in attempted hijackings and hijackings of motorists, Msinga said. He said goats from the Lahlamlenze informal settlement also use the bridge.
Motorists pay him when he fills the holes. “In a day I make over R120. This money buys me toiletries and food. The rainy season has been good to me,” he said.
He said the government’s failures are “feeding me.” Msinga also cleans dump sites in the community before they “become a bigger problem.”
“I will capitalise on the government’s short falls as my means of survival,” he said.
The DA has criticised the ANC-led Gauteng provincial government for the pothole crisis since March 2026, calling it a failure of road maintenance and a “death trap of roads in Johannesburg”.
Pictured above: A damaged road with potholes in Soweto.
Image source: Palesa Matlala
