Blog

As an employer, partner and social citizen, SANRAL acknowledges the need for further progress in the drive towards gender equality. We believe more women should be taking their place in South Africa’s male-dominated engineering and construction space. Only 13% of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) graduates in South Africa are women, while only 1 in 5 engineers in the country are women, making it easy to understand why there is under-representation of female engineers in leadership positions.

While female engineers are in the minority, many women have become highly successful within SANRAL, among them executive managers, general managers and senior project managers. These women are challenging stereotypes and leading the way as role models who inspire other women to do the same.

While SANRAL is in the business of building roads, we don’t achieve that with bitumen and concrete alone – we achieve it with people. We are an organisation that delivers ‘beyond roads’, and likewise we believe in delivering a workplace that is ‘beyond gender’.

There should be more women designing and constructing bridges, building new roads, maintaining infrastructure and, most importantly, owning and managing their own construction companies. SANRAL plays a role in helping to make this possible, by leveraging road construction and maintenance contracts to help address South Africa’s most pressing social and economic challenges.

Partnerships in action

 

SANRAL is determined to be part of South Africa’s post-COVID-19 economic recovery through road infrastructure projects that create new jobs, especially for women and the youth. Through deliberate and systematic broad-based black economic empowerment and transformation, we are maximising the participation of black contractors, professionals and suppliers in commissioned projects. Through our procurement processes, we can ensure increased participation of women as contractors, professionals and suppliers.

As an organisation, SANRAL employs fewer than 500 people, but through our projects we create multiple jobs in different sectors and geographic areas of the country – many amidst communities in real need of employment opportunities. Major initiatives, such as upgrading the N2 Wild Coast Road and constructing the spectacular 580m long Msikaba Bridge, have a positive impact from job creation to revitalising distressed construction companies, empowering women and youth through SMME development, and creating substantial black-owned construction firms.

We are committed to ensuring that all main upgrade and local road infrastructure projects have at least 30% of their budget allocated to SMMEs, especially those owned by women and the youth. In the 2020/21 financial year, black women held 12% of all contracts awarded to black-owned companies. This is not enough, but it is a base from which we intend to continue to grow female participation in our projects.

Women and education

 

In South Africa educational inequality remains a challenge – yet access to education plays an essential role in empowering women to grow into positions of leadership.

We cannot compromise on appropriate professional qualifications for many positions within SANRAL, which is why we are serious about skills development and knowledge transfer. While this is mainly in the field of engineering, others such as the environment, smart technologies, and infrastructure development are included. The agency invests in creating talent pipelines from high school and university to ensure that it has future engineers to build and maintain our national road network.

We seek to grow the ratio of women who benefit from our scholarship and bursary programmes, Technical Excellence Academy, graduate development programme and schools outreach programme, enabling more women to become professionals in fields that are vital to the growth of the country’s vast road infrastructure network.

When it comes to SANRAL’s own people, female employees outnumber males. However, women are under-represented at senior and other management levels. This is linked to the broader question of access to education and gender bias, and we will continue to make every effort to correct it.

SANRAL recommits itself to supporting women in our industry, at every level and in all fields. This means creating safe, non-discriminatory workplaces where women can grow at the same rate as men, where their input and insight is equally valued, and in which we are all able to move beyond inequality.

Not fully optimising the contribution that women have to make is robbing our economies, societies and communities of achieving their full potential.

Going beyond gender just makes sense – because working together, we can build a better South Africa – one that is more equal and better for all.

 

With an estimated road traffic death rate of approximately 25 per 100,000 people, there is no question that road safety is an issue that needs to be prioritised in South Africa – and needs to be tackled on a variety of fronts.

SANRAL recognises how important it is that South Africa’s citizens prioritise their personal safety, to make sure they come home at the end of the day. The agency recently launched a new road safety awareness campaign focusing on the power of the individual to take their life and future into their own hands, by doing that ‘one thing’ that could save their life.

The campaign aims to empower the individual. The core message is to remind road users to ‘take care of number one’, so that you can be there for your family, your community and your future.

Don’t have that ‘one for the road’, don’t be distracted ‘for one second’, don’t choose not to buckle up ‘just this once’ – because you only have one life.

This is not aimed solely at motorists, but at all types of road users. For example, when cycling, the one rule is ‘to be seen is to be safe’, especially at night. Wearing a reflective jacket, bright clothes and a helmet can help you to attract the attention of drivers, from the front, rear and sides.

Then there are pedestrians, who make up many of the road fatalities each year. The tagline on the related advert in the campaign is ‘One wrong move can be deadly’.

SANRAL is always erecting vandal-proof fences along vulnerable sections of our highways, in an attempt to stop pedestrians from running across the freeway. Walking to an overhead bridge may take a bit longer, but it could be a decision that makes the difference between life and death

Another single vital decision is to buckle up our seatbelts before we set off in the car: one click can save your life.

Then there is the issue of speed. When driving at higher speed, the driver needs a faster reaction time if anything remiss happens – and this is even more pertinent when the roads are wet. One second slower can avoid a crash.

Mobile devices are never out of the equation, and walking and texting is just as dangerous as texting and driving. Your eyes are glued to the screen, taking your focus away from the traffic around you. One text can change your life forever. Keep your phone in your handbag or pocket until you get to your destination.

Likewise, one call can end it all. SANRAL’s campaign focuses on taxi drivers, urging them not to use a mobile phone while driving, which can result in a range of fatal errors that impact the lives of many. Of course, this applies to all drivers. Turn your mobile off and keep your attention on the road.

Just one good decision on your part can help to make sure that we all get home safe and sound.

 

SANRAL’s Transformation Policy sets clearly defined targets for the participation of black contractors, professionals and suppliers, and is designed to maximise their participation in all projects commissioned by the roads agency.

The national roll-out of SANRAL’s programme of pre-tender training for SMMEs has commenced through the appointed service provider ACS/Tjeka JV.

 

The programme targets CIDB Grade 1–4 CEs with active membership who meet the requirements of registration with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) and are SARS tax-compliant. The programme entails:

• Briefing the Project Liaison Committee (PLC) on Routine Road Maintenance projects. These committees have vast constituency reach and assist with spreading information.
• Placing adverts in local newspapers as a call for registration with the service provider online or by physical submission.
• Obtaining the current SMME CIDB Grade 1–4 database from Routine Road Maintenance projects.
• Conducting screening of SMMEs, looking at their CIDB, SARS, COID status, etc.
• Inviting nominated individuals from qualifying SMMEs to write a maths literacy assessment that will qualify them for the 3-week training.

 

 

The training is designed to address basic literacy and numeracy, understanding how to run a successful contracting business and how to eventually develop and submit competitive, yet profitable and compliant tenders. Nine unit standards have been selected for the programme, which includes the use of mathematics to investigate and monitor the financial aspects of personal and community life, tender for construction contracts and manage construction resources, among others.

These nine unit standards form part of a 24-unit standard towards a National Certificate of Construction Supervision (NQF 2). If they so wish, the trainee can complete the remaining 15 modules on their own in the future. The programme includes assignments and assessments after each phase of the training has been completed.

Through this programme SANRAL aims to develop, support, train and capacitate an estimated 40,000 SMMEs over the next three years, in a bid to transform the industry and set in motion a developmental pipeline that will ultimately see subcontractors become main contractors.

In the coming months SANRAL will be taking its message of transformation and hope across the national road network. There are incredibly able and willing small businesses who simply need encouragement, access and mentoring to facilitate growth and development.

We are determined to break down barriers to meaningful participation in our industry, and getting SMMEs geared up is just the beginning.

 

SANRAL prioritises women in construction on its R400-million Western Region slope stabilisation projects. In Groot Brak alone, SANRAL is investing R240 million to stabilise the slope in a bid to prevent rockfalls and slope slipping. Women lead the charge on the projects. Deline Malgas, project liaison officer in Groot Brak, reaches out to unemployed people in the area to help them apply for work opportunities on site. On the R26 million Piekenierskloof Pass, Mquanlla van Wyk hauls a thick rope to support abseilers who dangle 100m off the ground as they work on the slope. Gelcon Civils, a women-owned construction company, is subcontracted to do traffic accommodation on the project. Kamogelo Monembe manages two subcontractors who work on the N1 between Riemhoogte and Skietfontein. “There aren’t many black female civil engineers, but it is time that changes. Young girls need to step up and be counted,” she says.

 

Paying toll fees on the Trans African Concessions (TRAC) N4 Route has become easier and more convenient with the introduction of express lanes at Nkomazi Plaza near Mbombela. Express lanes are situated on the extreme left of the plaza (in each direction). The tag is read, and road users must drive below 40km/h. It functions as a ‘pre-clearing’ zone to determine if the vehicle has a tag, if the tag is functional, and if it has sufficient funds. Although the express lanes enable road users to pay their toll fee while in motion, everyone using these lanes is advised to keep a safe following distance from the vehicle in front of them.

 

SANRAL Southern Region Community Development Specialist Xoliswa Chubana addressing stakeholders in Bedford.

 

Much needed jobs will be created when a special maintenance road project from the R63/N10 intersection to Bedford kicks off in the neighbouring towns of Bedford and Cookhouse in the Eastern Cape. The project, valued at R155 million, will create job opportunities for community members and SMMEs in the local municipalities of Blue Crane and Raymond Mhlaba. The project includes a training budget allocated to upskill local SMMEs, especially emerging contractors in the lower grades as determined by the Construction Industry Development Board.

 

 

SANRAL manages about 2,400km of road infrastructure across Mpumalanga province, and has projects planned in various municipalities, including upgrading the R573 Moloto Road (Thembisile Hani), resurfacing national route N17 from Springs to R50/Leandra Interchange, resurfacing national road R33 from Mkhondo to Amsterdam, and repairing various structures on the N12. Duration of these projects ranges from 10 to 15 months, and they are estimated to cost between R40 million to R50 million each. Opportunities for subcontracting include concrete pavement repair, drainage and structures improvements, road furniture (road signs and guardrails) and road markings. There are also 14 SANRAL community development projects, one being the improvement and construction of pedestrian safety facilities on national road R37 from Modikwa mine to Burgersfort, with a tender value of approximately R600 million. At least 20 SMMEs will be employed on the project, and more than 300 job opportunities will be created.