Chief Area Engineers : City of Ekurhuleni roads and stormwater depot

This thesis, titled "Space, Infrastructure, and Budgets: A Case of Roads and Stormwater Maintenance in the City of Ekurhuleni, South Africa, 2000–2020," conducted an in-depth investigation into the roads and stormwater maintenance budgets in the City of Ekurhuleni between 2000 and 2020. The 1998 White Paper on Local Government stated that apartheid fundamentally damaged the local government spatial environment; therefore, this thesis also assesses how maintenance budgets pursue spatial justice. Influenced by Lefebvre’s “Production of Space,” the candidate affirms that budgets produce space. This study introduces a triple nexus of space, infrastructure, and budgets. This is an innovative contribution to South African cities research, which recognises the need for a granular understanding of maintenance budgets in pursuit of spatial justice in the post-apartheid city. Data are collected from purposeful sampling, which targeted all depot managers in roads and stormwater depots that service the townships in Ekurhuleni.