The Civil Engineering Contractor February 2019 | Page 26

TECHNOLOGY
From left: Paul Heslop, MD of Rhino Excavator Hammers, and Wiseman Mlobeli,
operations manager of Rhino Earthmovers Plant Hire.
strengthen good governance in
procurement of infrastructure
projects. However, there are serious
unintended consequences that
must be addressed with National
Treasury, including project delays
and cancellations, and conflict with
construction general conditions
of contract. This is becoming a
serious issue that is threatening
to hamstring government from
releasing tenders to the benefit
of industry and the delivery of
infrastructure,” says Macozoma.
He notes that the impasse with
National Treasury had led to 50 of
Sanral’s contracts not proceeding in
the previous financial year, and that
this would affect the construction
industry with an 18-month lag
in contracts awarded, as most of
these delayed contracts are still in
a design phase as a result. Things
should return to normal after that,
Macozoma hopes, “unless of course
what the president was saying
holds true: that the capacity in the
country will have been reduced by
then — the industry will not be able
to absorb the projects and we’ll be
looking outside.
“On the positive side, there is a
silver lining: despite low investor
confidence, industry output is
projected by analysts to rise at a
compound annual rate of 1.5% over
the medium term. Public investment
24 | CEC February 2019
"The production and
turnaround times are
also much quicker
than concrete."
in housing, energy, transport, and
logistics are seen as drivers of this
growth. Certainty over the National
Development Plan’s five-year cycle
of the national infrastructure plan is
crucial if the industry is to gear up
for a solid project pipeline.
“Sanral has awarded two mega
projects on the N2 Wild Coast at
a cost of R3-billion, with a further
seven packages soon to be tendered
for a budgeted amount of an
additional R6-billion. It is our hope
that with the help of government
and industry players, we can unlock
the rest of the R128-billion worth of
national road projects that are sitting
at Sanral right now, not able to be
rolled out because there’s a general
anti-toll sentiment in the country.”
Nonetheless, the current Sanral
2018/19 non-toll budget allocation
amounts to R54-billion, plus another
R15-billion for the toll portfolio
that will go towards traditional
maintenance and priorities capex.
“We are the stimulus before the
[Ramaphosa] stimulus package,”
says Macozoma.
Shaun Hadkinson, marketing
manager of CoreSlab, CoreCivils, and
Corestruc, describes the general state
of the road building industry: “The
entire construction industry is in a very
difficult position. This can be attributed
to underspending on infrastructure by
the state, including roads — the bread
and butter of the construction industry
— due to a number of reasons. More
recently, Sanral started spending again.
This follows a protracted delay in
investment into its roads infrastructure.
According to the Ministry of Transport,
Sanral’s spending is set to rise as high as
R20-billion by 2020/21.
“In the City of Johannesburg, only
6% of bridges are claimed to be
in good condition and the balance
requires urgent intervention. Some
of these bridges are between 60
and 90 years old and an investment
of R170-billion is required to
attend to this growing backlog. The
municipality wants to raise more
than R50-million to attend to this
shortfall,” says Hadkinson.
According to Sanral, bridges
on its road network are in good
condition. The national road system
comprises more than 9 800 bridges
and major culverts, which are
inspected every five to six years by
accredited inspectors. This includes
the 927 bridges and culverts on
routes managed by concession
holders. According to its 2017/18
financial results, 93% of travel on
national roads involved bridges
considered to be in good condition
— slightly lower than in 2016/17,
when the figure was 94%. “It notes
that the majority of the national
bridges and culverts were inspected
from 2015 to 2017 and, wherever
road upgrades include new bridges
and culverts, inspectors ensure that
these structures meet the specified
flood-capacity standards,” he says.
JG Afrika, a firm of consulting
engineers, is supervising the
doubling of an approximately 30km
section of the N4 toll road between
the M17 Garankuwa and R512 Brits
www.civilsonline.co.za