North West, October 18, 2021: The South African National Roads Agency SOC Limited (SANRAL) has informed the community of Zeerust, in the North West province, of a R53 million routine road maintenance (RMM) project, of which more than 30 per cent will go towards local subcontractors.

SANRAL made this announcement at a recent Taking SANRAL to the People engagement in Zeerust. The event was held in line with SANRAL’s fourth pillar of stakeholder relations, which requires that the roads agency engages communities on matters that affect them.

The objective of the community engagement was to share details on Vision 2030 and the Transformation Policy aimed at achieving economic development, and inclusivity.

The RRM planned for the R49 sections 1 and 2, with a total of 110.5km in Zeerust, North West, will include a much-needed clean-up of the road reserve, as a part of the general maintenance, vegetation control, pavement repairs and traffic accommodation.

SANRAL’s Northern Region Stakeholder Coordinator, Jullecsia Saul, said emphasised the importance of empowering women, children and persons living with disabilities.

Saul also highlighted the need for more consultation in job creation: “This project has afforded local small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs) the opportunity to understand SANRAL’s tendering process, which contribute to the Zeerust community through job creation. We are also here to address concerns raised about the current ongoing projects; such is the significance of this information sharing session.

Taking SANRAL to the People was created as a solution to the growing need of communities to have access to SANRAL, because of how far the head offices are situated,” Saul added.

Northern Region Project Manager, Miss Karabo Otloa, discussed the upcoming SANRAL project in greater detail.

“The R49 starts at the Mahikeng municipal border and goes straight up to the Kopfontein border post with Botswana. The RRM project route is split into two sections. It started in November 2020 and will continue until October 2023. The project value is R53 million, and it will run for 36 months. The main contractor is Vea Roads Maintenance & Civil. We have expensive roads that need rehabilitation through consistent upgrading and maintenance, and this is where the RRM division comes in.”

“We also subcontract a portion of the maintenance work. The National Treasury has requested that all state-owned entities (SOEs) subcontract 30% of the work, and the percentage is also determined by the BEE level of the main contractor. In this project, we have subcontracted more than 30%.”

The Bakwena Platinum Corridor Concessionaire commercial manager, Solomon Kganyago, discussed Bakwena’s partnership with SANRAL.

“Bakwena has a public 30-year concession contract with SANRAL. We implement the policies SANRAL introduces because we work in the same communities. It becomes a collective responsibility towards the provision of safer roads. In return, Bakwena manages the tollgates, the nearest one being the Swartruggens tollgate. It also benefits us to match the amount of work SANRAL has done thus far,” he said.

Chairperson of the SANRAL Board, Mr Themba Mhambi, delivered the keynote address and answered a few of the community’s burning questions.

“We are grateful that you are all here, we truly appreciate the way you have been engaging with SANRAL. We are not here to be defensive. We are here to share information and listen attentively so we can correct anything that is not right. As a public institution we are duty bound to work with the government at the level of the community.”

“We are going to make sure the NGOs and business forums are bought into such engagements. We are also making sure that in our engagements with the municipality, all the various stakeholder groups are involved. SANRAL is not perfect and the only way to improve this is continued engagement with you, the municipality and the PLC [project liaison committee] members.”

Members of the community emphasised the need for SANRAL to host another engagement session soon to discuss in detail the issues raised. SANRAL was in full agreement with that request.