WINNING
POT OF GOLD
AT THE END OF THE
RAINBOW
A rainbow hovers over Roodepoort Crushers’ sand processing equipment.
By Eamonn Ryan | All photos by
Eamonn Ryan and Ntsako Khoza
Polokwane is a Limpopo hub
for concrete manufacturing.
All around lie granite outcrops
and river beds, with a
number of quarries supplying
sand and aggregate into
the industry. Roodepoort
Crushers is the newest and
highly successful, something
management attributes to
its focus on servicing local
customers while others have
chased the mirage of public
infrastructure.
www.quarryonline.co.za
N
estled in a 4.5km radius at the
edge of Polokwane used to lie
three quarries, each with their own
management style. With enormous road
projects planned in and around Polokwane,
two of the quarries geared up for boom
times. Yet, when the roadworks commenced,
instead of using the existing quarries, the
contractor apparently opted to establish its
own borrow pit in the vicinity.
One of those quarries spent close to R200-
million in upgrading its Polokwane quarry,
only to overextend itself and ultimately
shut it. The second also expanded heavily
during the construction boom before the
2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup, and the group
experienced financial difficulties after listing
and buying a number of quarries at inflated
prices.
Jannie van Waveren, director of Alpha
Sand, believes that the success of Roodepoort
Crushers is its focus on bread-and-butter
local customers, as opposed to chasing
projects of temporary duration. By focusing
on a strict ethic of service — and treating
even the smallest customer the same as larger
customers — Roodepoort Crushers, the
newest of the three having broken ground
just five years ago, has consistently grown
and expanded. Its first five years of operation
were only on mining permit, limiting
management willingness to invest to the full.
In February this year it finally received its
own mining licence from the DMR, and the
foot is now off the brake.
Roodepoort’s success is that it has a
customer base which is not just reliant on
the Polokwane market — which itself is a
dynamic and rapidly expanding metropole
— but which manufactures cement-based
products that are supplied all over the
northern part of the country.
“We’re a family-owned business started
by my father 40 years ago, Alpha Sand.
There were only two dominant players
at the time and the market was in dire
need of competition. At Alpha Sand we
have prided ourselves on our service and
QUARRY SA | MAY/JUNE 2019_17