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It has been all hands on deck since Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula launched Operation Vala Zonke in August. This 16-month campaign sees SANRAL partnering and working with local and provincial government officials as well as the public to ensure that potholes are repaired speedily.

This campaign will change the face of municipal and provincial roads from pothole-riddled to an acceptable state of repair. It will also create jobs and improve the country’s road infrastructure. The programme extends across the country with premiers and MECs in the lead, and will be closely monitored and assessed over the coming months.

Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula

Minister Mbalula urged the public to play their part by downloading the SANRAL Pothole reporting app, where they can upload pictures and provide a real-time location of the affected road on an interactive map. The app provides status updates using a pothole ticketing system. The information is assigned to the relevant authority, and the maintenance depot responsible for that road attends to fixing the pothole.

 

Download SANRAL’s Pothole app at the Google Play Store or Apple App Store.

View how many times the Pothole app has been downloaded and how many potholes have been reported at

https://valazonke.co.za

 

 

 

 

Northern Cape

At the launch in the Northern Cape the MEC of Roads and Public Works, Ms Fufe Makatong, said there are many contributing factors to potholes. “Contrary to public sentiment, potholes are not only a symptom of roads that are not maintained. Like many other roads in the country, the R374, which is the main link between the R31 and the N12, has reached the end of its design life, and the ever-increasing heavy vehicle traffic does not aid matters.”

SANRAL’s Western Region Manager Randall Cable said that “No country in the world is without potholes. How we manage this, repair and then put a long-term maintenance strategy in place will determine the eventual state of our roads. SANRAL is committed to working with the Northern Cape Provincial Government. We commend them for the quantity and quality of the data that the province submits in order for us to accurately assess the state of the roads.”

“Operation Vala Zonke is also geared to address youth unemployment, as we are using students who have completed training in road construction, to work on the pothole repairs, along with our internal resources,” added Ms Makatong.

Eastern Cape

In the Eastern Cape, the MEC of Transport, Safety and Liaison, Ms Weziwe Tikana-Gxothiwe said the province was aligning their work with Operation Vala Zonke, and that the Eastern Cape Department of Transport planned to fix 65,000m² of potholes in the province and had set aside a budget of R49 million.

“SANRAL is taking over five roads in the province, which is great. We have done good work in the Sarah Baartman District Municipality, and we are busy working in Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality. We will continue to work in Alfred Nzo District Municipality. We try to work with the communities,” she said.

Free State

The Free State, the agricultural stronghold of the country which has long been dogged by bad roads, mainly due to the high volumes of trucks, has already fixed and filled an impressive 16,540 potholes – and plans to do more – as part of Operation Vala Zonke.

Hillary Mophethe, spokesperson for the Free State Department of Police, Roads and Transport (DPRT), disclosed that potholes covering a total area of 8,270m² have so far been repaired by teams from the DPRT, working with external stakeholders.

Free State MEC for Police, Roads and Transport William Bulwane declared that the Free State will be pothole-free in six months. “That being said, we must remember that all of us have a responsibility to make this programme a success. Instead of just complaining, let’s be active participants and change the situation by reporting these potholes. Wherever you come across a pothole, take a photo and upload it on the SANRAL app. The alert will immediately be captured and logged into the SANRAL system and the pothole will be attended to.”

 

The new Musina Ring Road is now open to traffic. This R640 million SANRAL project is in one of the busiest parts of Limpopo Province, which connects South Africa to the rest of the SADC Region. This new road, which controls traffic into and out of Musina, will facilitate the free flow of traffic to the Beitbridge border with Zimbabwe. It promotes better mobility and the safe movement of goods, services and people in and around Musina, and will be instrumental in facilitating greater economic activity between South Africa and neighbouring countries.

“Over the last three years, the project created 275 full-time jobs at a cost of more than R28 million. The Musina Ring Road Project used accredited training service providers to train SMMEs and local labourers who worked on this project. There was an allocation of R51 million which was spent on local subcontractors.

“We would not have been able to complete the Musina Ring Road project if it was not for a partnership between government, the private sector and local communities,” said Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula. The Musina Ring Road diverts the N1 traffic around the border town, much to the relief of motorists, business leaders and taxi organisations. Owen Simba, site manager at local business Makali Construction said: “My construction company built the bridges and the culverts at an investment of R114 million. We created jobs for 12 skilled labourers as well as 23 local general workers.

“As the project progressed, we added more people. SANRAL is committed to creating equitable access for small contractors, particularly black-owned enterprises, through its procurement processes.” Project engineer for SANRAL’s Northern Region, Hennie Kotze, said the new road brings relief to roads in the Musina central business district, where trucks travel to and from the Beitbridge border post. Before the Ring Road, more than 1,000 heavy-duty vehicles and trucks used the N1, passing through the Musina CBD daily, causing significant damage to the road infrastructure in the town. Cross-border truck driver Joseph Masinire from Zimbabwe said the new road would ease congestion between Musina and Beitbridge border post, and save travel time. Musina business leader Mosses Matshivha said the new road would reduce dust blown up by traffic, which created health hazards for residents. He said it would also save travel time for road users and reduce vehicle operating costs. “Our businesses will do well because heavy-duty vehicles are no longer sharing the narrow roads with local road users and pedestrians,” said Matshivha.

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.