The Civil Engineering Contractor June 2019 | Page 41

BUSINESS INTEL
we introduced the e-toll system and
many of the people who did not
know about us started to take notice.
We became infamous as opposed to
famous and upset a lot of people. We
experienced budget cuts; our work
was [quite] a bit more politicised than
it has traditionally been. We learned
some hard lessons around stakeholder
engagement
and
community
development,” he explains.
SANRAL found itself listening to
companies and individuals that aired
their criticisms about the organisation
and aligned that with the strategic
plan.
“A lot of black businesses stressed
that they don’t have access to
SANRAL projects and change needed
to happen. With the current sentiment
in the country and the emergence
of Radical Economic Transformation
(RET), you have the challenge of
projects suffering disruptions on site
www.civilsonline.co.za
and some projects being cancelled or
stopped for long periods. And this is
the decade we’ve suffered all these
things,” he says.
Macozoma predicts the effects of
these challenges will translate into
fewer kilometres delivered compared
to the previous decade.
“We have suffered a lot of project
delays. The anti-toll sentiment in
country has meant we are sitting with
more than R128-billion of project
value that can’t move forward because
no-one will support projects in their
regions. The fiscus can’t carry those
projects so those projects are unlikely
to happen anytime soon,” he explains.
He shares that it is not only
SANRAL’s performance that will be
affected by these challenges, but it
will affect the economy and growth.
“The economy will be held back in
certain critical networks across the
country, congestion will catch up
with us, the damage to the network
will become more evident as sections
of roads become more distressed.
If you can’t do maintenance at
scheduled times you lose time and
money and it will come back to bite
us,” he laments. nn
Horizon 2030 roads focus
Some of the flagship projects listed
in the strategy to a deliver high
socio-economy include:
• 
N2 Wild Coast in Eastern
Cape province
• 
N1/N3/R300 in the Cape
Town area
• Moloto Road R573 in Tshwane
• Gauteng Freeway Improvement
Plan (GFIP) Phases 2 and 3
• 
N3 Van Reenen between
Durban and Johannesburg
• N2/N3 Durban route
CEC June 2019 | 39