SANRAL Investing in the environment

Probably the first professionally designed and constructed road in South Africa was the Franschhoek Pass in 1825. The real change in the need for roads and how they were constructed came with the arrival of the internal combustion engine. In 1896, the first ‘horseless carriage’ – a Benz Velo – arrived in South Africa. The car had been imported by local businessman John Percy Hess. It was publicly displayed in 1897 at the Berea Park sports ground in Pretoria in front of Paul Kruger, then the President of the Transvaal Republic. The flyer for the big event proclaimed that the ‘motor car’ was the ‘invention of the age’ that, like the bicycle, had ‘come to stay and [would] be the craze of the century’.

The publicity hype was right, though it wasn’t until 1903 that the Ford Model A was available outside America. By 1910, about 1 000 Ford Model Ts per year were coming off the production line and hitting South African roads. But first there was rail. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, South Africans relied heavily on trains to transport both goods and people over long distances and roads were mainly ignored by the governments of the day. Our country was lagging sadly in this regard. It was only in the ’30s that things changed. By passing the National Roads Act in 1935, the Union Parliament gave its approval to the first attempt to finance and construct a Union-wide system of arterial national roads. The two main provisions of this act were the establishment of a National Road Board and, crucially, a National Road Fund. The Board, functioning directly under the Minister of the Interior, was entrusted with various duties.
The principal one of which was the submission for the Minister’s approval of a fiveyear scheme of national road works. The Minister duly approved the scheme in 1936.

It provided for the construction, reconstruction or repair and maintenance, at the sole cost and charge of the National Road Fund, of approximately 8 690km of roads, to be declared as national roads. It got off to a slow start. The outbreak of WWII in 1939 stymied any progress and most of the major roads in South Africa were only built from the ’50s on. The nature of the business has changed over the years. SANRAL does more than just develop and maintain roads, it is an active agent for societal change. The agency’s role includes road safety for both drivers and pedestrians, job creation, job training, increasing existing skill levels and developing small businesses, with an eye to transformation in the sector. In 2018, SANRAL’s evolving mandate has taken us to a whole new level of planning for the economic future of our country. Roads mean development, whether economic, social or educational, and our national roads agency has formalised the recognition of its responsibility to that development. SANRAL’s new strategic vision, Horizon 2030, looks to stepping up the empowerment and transformation aspects of its approach. It has taken this message throughout the country on a road show, connecting with local communities and stakeholders, laying out that as much as 50% of contracts will go to black-owned SMMEs and stressing that it hopes to change the construction industry so that not only big companies land contracts. We’ve come a long way from ox wagons. Properly built modern roads are vital to the economic development of any country, especially so in South Africa, where 80% of all goods are now transported by road. There is a plan to make rail more attractive once again, but for now, roads are it. This gives SANRAL an enormous

This gives SANRAL an enormous opportunity to help wipe out the disadvantages of the past and open up new possibilities for hundreds of small businesses.

opportunity to help wipe out the disadvantages of the past and open up new possibilities for hundreds of small businesses. The roads agency thus has real influence in advancing the aims of the National Development Plan (NDP) – eradicating poverty, creating jobs, boosting equality and growing the economy. Over the years SANRAL’s direct intervention has made a significant contribution to transformation and Horizon 2030 is set to accelerate this considerably. Just in the last financial year, work worth R4bn was contracted to and performed by SMMEs on road construction, rehabilitation and maintenance projects, generating the equivalent of more than 19 000 jobs, while about 4 300 people received training on these projects. The drive toward equity is also found in SANRAL’s extensive scholarship and bursary programmes. It awards bursaries annually to those studying in areas related to its business. This helps to grow a talent pool for SANRAL’s own purposes, but it also assists in filling the skills gap in the country.

Last year 133 students attended nine tertiary institutions with SANRAL bursaries. In the last financial year, the agency invested R4.3m in scholarships for 194 learners. The matric class showed how well the recipients were chosen – of the 55, 80% qualified for degree-level studies at university. SARAL has a very successful internship programme through its contractors and consultants, placing an astonishing 304 interns, giving them the opportunity to gain practical experience in the workplace and easing their way into the job market – this is equivalent to 87% of the agency’s staff complement.
Established in 2014, the Technical Excellence Academy in Port Elizabeth aims to equip graduate engineers with the necessary knowledge and competencies to enable them to register in one of the professions governed by the Engineering Council. In so many ways, the SANRAL brief has evolved beyond simply building and maintaining roads. The agency takes care not only of road users, scholars and students, it is extremely careful with the environment, changing road routes to accommodate rare indigenous trees and replanting vegetation.
It also funds teaching and research at four universities, is a pioneer of publicprivate partnerships, is a leader in automated electronic toll payments and is involved in community development projects along the roads its manages. One of these is heavy involvement in road safety – programmes to teach learners in schools near the roads, research into what to teach so that it has a lasting impact, pedestrian crossings and the road safety incident management system on major routes to keep motorists informed of conditions ahead.
The organisation may be 20, and it has a long line of predecessors, but essentially it is involved in more than roads. It is building a road to equity. Not bad for a 20-year-old.

Making a pass

Building and maintaining roads is expensive. Very expensive. Adequate funding has always been a problem and still is. It can be frustrating for road builders if they cannot get the financial backing they need. Back in the early part of the 19th century, the governor of the Cape Colony, Sir Lowry Cole, was so annoyed at the refusal of the British government to make funds available to build the much-needed pass into the interior that he decided to go ahead without Colonial Office permission. It then held him personally responsible for the costs and accused him of insubordination. But the people of the Cape rallied around him and raised funds to save him. Eventually, the British government relented, paid the costs and even named the pass after him: Sir Lowry’s Pass.

It’s a national road, except...

So what is a national road? Basically, if you’re on a good road it’s most likely a national road, a SANRAL road. But you can also know this by checking the numbering: an N-route is usually a national route, as in N1, N2, N3, N4 and so on. But there are exceptions. Part of the N14 is provincial, while some regional roads are national, meaning they are managed by SANRAL – like the R61 in the Eastern Cape. Increasingly, provinces are asking the national roads agency to take over some of their roads, while the numbering stays the same. Chances are, if they’re good, they’re SANRAL’s.