The Civil Engineering Contractor June 2019 | Page 40

BUSINESS INTEL
SANRAL:
here for the
long haul
SANRAL’s Mount Edgecombe Interchange linking the N2 and M41 highways.
By Ntsako Khosa
South African National
Roads Agency Limited
(SANRAL) has been in
existence for two decades.
Its CEO takes us through
that journey in this, one of
two parts, and shares how
the organisation became
‘infamous as opposed to
famous’ while overcoming
a myriad of challenges.
T
he words, ‘A roads authority
that is constantly at work
seeking to deliver a safe,
efficient, reliable and resilient
national road transport system for the
benefit of South Africans’ are seen on
company brochures that line SANRAL
CEO Skhumbuzo Macozoma’s office.
He points out a room to his left
that he calls ‘the war room’, a think
tank that has birthed many strategies
within the organisation.
CEC recently chatted to him
to unpack this quote and to ask:
is SANRAL more than just about
e-tolls?
Established in 1998, SANRAL
has gone from managing 7 200km
38 | CEC June 2019
to having a national road network
of more than 22 000km, which is
something that Macozoma is proud of
and he outlines how they plan to take
the network even further through its
Horizon 2030 strategy.
“It is a new long-term strategy that
gives a trajectory of what SANRAL
aims to achieve over the remaining
11 years of the cycle. It’s a vision that
seeks to give clarity to South Africans
in terms of where SANRAL will be
taking national roads development
over the long term,” he says.
He emphasises that the plan is
aligned with the country’s National
Development Plan (NDP) because
the national roads system is critical
to many of the goals of the NDP as
well as stimulating and supporting
the economic objectives in the
country. Projects like the N2 Wild
Coast, Gauteng to Durban corridor,
as well as the Limpopo mining belt
currently being developed, are a few
of the projects that form part of
government’s Strategic Integrated
Plan which seeks to collaborate with
different aspects of the economy.
Projects rolled out by the agency
provide employment to an average
15 000 people full time, with
400 multi-year projects running
concurrently at any given time.
“It’s quite central that we achieve
our own objectives to be able to
contribute to the economy. Projects
are a continuous belt that keep the
same quantum of people busy on
an annual basis, but we do want to
increase the numbers,” he says.
The first decade
Macozoma speaks enthusiastically
about Horizon 2010 – the strategic
plan prior to the existing plan to 2030
– which saw the agency achieve many
of its objectives, including more than
doubling its road network.
“We were able to do a lot of critical
infrastructure on main corridors such
as the M1, N3, M2, Maputo Corridor
and Bakwena Platinum Highway. They
were all part of the plan. It was a very
successful period and government had
backed us up with a lot of capital,” he
asserts. World Cup 2010 excitement
also played a role as it translated into
an injection of funds.
It is the second decade that
Macozoma describes as challenging. It
is in this decade that SANRAL shot to
notoriety for the inception of e-tolls,
as well as experiencing project delays
owing to fund shortages and budget
cuts. The country entered economic
downturn, as well as political
interference.
“In this period, we reverted to
medium-term strategic frameworks
of government, aligning our
programmes with political terms. We
had an economic downturn and that’s
when it started. In the same period,
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