Durban Student Creates App to Track City Repairs Nationwide

Tired of hearing people complain about potholes and broken streetlights without knowing if things were actually getting better or worse, a Durban student decided to build something that would show the truth.

Keyuren Maharaj, a final-year mechanical engineering student at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, created CityMenderSA after getting frustrated with endless griping about municipal failures in his city. He wanted to know: Are things really as bad as everyone says, or are some problems actually getting fixed?

His solution was elegant. The app lets anyone use their phone camera to photograph infrastructure issues like water leaks, potholes, or dead streetlights. Geotagging pins each problem to its exact location, creating a living map of what's broken and what gets repaired.

Maharaj taught himself to code just last year using YouTube tutorials and handled 99% of the development work himself. He's now patented the technology. The app launched this month on both iPhone and Android, plus a web version for desktop users.

What makes CityMenderSA different from typical complaint apps is its focus on tracking solutions, not just problems. Citizens can see which issues get resolved and how quickly, giving everyone a clearer picture of municipal performance beyond the emotional reactions.

The student refused what he called standing in the sun waving a placard like a muppet. Instead, he chose to channel his frustration into building a tool that could help entire communities make sense of service delivery across South Africa.

The Ripple Effect

CityMenderSA works nationwide, meaning any South African municipality can now be held accountable through citizen-generated data. Residents in cities beyond Durban can finally answer the question: Is my city actually improving, or does it just feel hopeless?

The app transforms isolated complaints into meaningful patterns. When dozens of people document the same pothole over weeks, then suddenly it disappears from reports, that's measurable progress. When problems pile up in certain neighborhoods without resolution, that's accountability data communities can use.

Maharaj's do-it-yourself approach also proves that solutions to civic problems don't always require government budgets or professional developers. Sometimes they just need one determined person willing to learn new skills and build something useful.

Now citizens across South Africa have a way to cut through the noise of perpetual complaining and see what's really happening in their communities.