South African road users are frustrated by how prevalent potholes are, with the country’s road infrastructure falling into disrepair without a solution in sight.
But with the advent of entrepreneur Arthur Mabasa’s cold asphalt, a clean and green component for resurfacing roads, we could be on the road to a permanent solution to deal with the nuisance of potholes.
South Africa’s failing road infrastructure has been a headache to motorists and insurance companies alike due to the damage potholes cause to vehicles and the role they play in the high number of road accidents in the country.
Mabasa, born in Chiawelo, Soweto, and his partners plan to assist national and provincial government road agencies with a permanent solution to our deteriorating road infrastructure.
Mabasa is the co-founder and CEO of Revolutionary Road Solutions (RRS), a company he established in 2014. RRS is based in City Deep, Johannesburg east.
“We started this business after I discussed the plan and our prospects with my partners. My co-partners are Andrew Dipela and Eugene Taylor. We started the business after Eugene came up with the intellectual property,” says Mabasa.
“Since all three of us had ambitions to start a business, we noticed there were many shortcomings inherent in the conventional methods and materials used in road repair and maintenance. This saw us develop a stronger formula, which is unique from the conventional materials on the local market.”
Mabasa says in 2010, parliament commissioned the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to address the dilapidating state of our country’s roads and fortunately the study complemented and cemented RRS’s dream to be part of the solution.
“We realised the available cold asphalt failed to address the findings by the CSIR.
“As directors of RRS, we did our own research to determine the best solution to manufacture and produce cold asphalt.
“We are the only manufacturer of cold asphalt developed from scratch using our own methodologies and technology to produce the best material for our clients,” he says.
Mabasa says RRS had to invest in a big way to deal with compliance, regulations and standards required to bring the best in the business of road construction, which is highly regulated. “We had to develop a niche market. Pothole patching was a low-hanging fruit, but we took the initiative and brought out our A-game to manufacture the best cold asphalt in SA.
“With our vision we want to help the government rehabilitate our roads. We started by rolling out our products on the market and so far, things are looking up,” says Mabasa.
“We started with smaller projects to test the waters, and we are now rolling the cold asphalt we manufacture and do the actual road repairs.”
Armed with a BCom accounting degree from the University of Johannesburg and a BCom honours qualification in financial management from the University of Cape Town, Mabasa, a former vice president of Nafcoc in Johannesburg, says it was not a walk in the park for him and his business partners to reach this milestone.
“When we started, we were funded to get going, so we had to make it work.”
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