Johannesburg - The city council in Johannesburg, which is controlled by the opposition Democratic Alliance, faces a "staggering" back-log in delivering services to residents inherited from the African National Congress, Mayor Herman Mashaba said on Wednesday.

In his State Of the City address, Mashaba said Johannesburg was saddled with 100 000 potholes arising from an R11.8 billion backlog in its road network.

"In 2017, over 3 900 kilometres of our roads had fallen into the classification of poor or very poor conditions. This is the equivalent length of road that would take someone from Johannesburg to Nairobi," he said.

"This has been made worse by a R56 billion backlog in storm-water drainage, that results in the increasing the structural decline of our roads."

He said 78 percent of the city's 900 bridges were classified as being in either poor or very poor condition, and R6.5 billion was required to address this.