The Civil Engineering Contractor July 2019 | Page 36

BUSINESS INTEL
SANRAL:
Here for the
long haul
Sanral produces only top quality roads.
By Ntsako Khosa
South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) has
been in existence for two decades. In a follow-up to last
month’s interview, CEO Skhumbuzo Macozoma takes us
through the second part of that journey and looks to the
organisation’s future.
M
acozoma says that SANRAL
works differently to the
other road authorities in
the country, for instance prioritising
engineering principles like road
maintenance over new infrastructure.
“Whenever we get our budget
allocation, the first thing we spend on
is maintenance and this is what every
roads authority should do. Politically
there’ll always be pressure to develop
new infrastructure, however, and for
good reason because certain parts
of our country desperately need it,”
he says. He agrees that a balance is
required between the two and that is
one of the things that Horizon 2030
addresses.
Four pillars underpin the
business model: road infrastructure,
mobility, road safety and stakeholder
engagement. Rather than being
reactive to challenges it faces,
SANRAL has decided to be proactive
34 | CEC July 2019
in dealing with issues that have plagued
the current decade, hence road safety
and stakeholder engagement form
part of the core pillars.
“Engineers have to learn to better
engage with public when they plan
and develop infrastructure. Without
that, it’s been proven many times
that your projects will suffer delays
or there will be public rejection,
project cancellations, and so on,
says Macozoma. We’ve established a
dedicated unit across the regions,
and are finalising our stakeholder
engagement procurement process to
be able to appoint partners that will
help with social facilitation prior to
projects arriving. The aim is to engage
with communities, prepare them for
project arrival, and set up necessary
processes so that the project is better
accepted and supported when you
implement it.”
With more than 400 projects that
need to be delivered, an effective
transformation policy that includes
supply chain management reforms
and human resource capacity
enhancements is being rolled
out. This is seen through various
Memorandums of Understanding
(MoUs) signed with yellow plant
manufacturers such as Barloworld,
Bell Equipment and Wirtgen Group.
A section of their policy states that
SANRAL needs to be deliberate in
transforming sub-sectors they operate
under. “Part of the problem with our
industry is that you’ve got players
that own the entire supply chain,” says
Macozoma. “And a lot of the time,
black businesses that want to play find
it difficult to participate and they find
themselves at the mercy of big players
in terms of getting access.”
MoUs were set up to address yellow
plant access to SMMEs as well as
training on how to use the machinery.
Under the MoUs, small business
are provided with access to plant
equipment, finance as well as onsite
training. “Our projects are out in the
bundu. We therefore get big players
to provide technical support at sites.
If plant breaks down, sometimes it’s
difficult for small players to move
plant to get it fixed and back on site
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