Pretoria - Guidelines on how to repair and prevent potholes, published by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), have been a surprise hit.
“We were a little taken aback about the interest,” CSIR chief executive
Sibusiso Sibisi said on Monday, at the release of the CSIR’s annual results in Pretoria.
The guidelines, published in December last year, have been downloaded more than 800 times since placed on the CSIR website.
Sibisi said training courses on the causes of potholes and various repair methods for different types of potholes, held since February 2011, had also proved very popular.
There had been interest shown from other southern African countries.
The CSIR earned revenues of R1.73bn in the 2010/11 financial year. Most of this came from the public sector and the parliamentary grant.
Income from the South African private sector showed a significant increase from R148m in 2009/10, to R185m in the 2010/11 financial year.
Sibisi said the CSIR published 576 reports in scientific publications during the same period.
The CSIR is the largest research and development organisation in Africa, with 2 300 research staff. It conducts research in numerous fields, ranging from laser technology to mining and manufacturing.